TADEUSZ KOBIERZYCKI

THE DIONYSIAN MOTIFS OF KAROL SZYMANOWSKI’S OPERA “KING ROGER”

Contents of Article: Introduction, The Motif of the “King” in Karol Szymanowski’s Opera; The Postcolonial Syndrome in Karol Szymanowski’s Operatic Music; The Premiere in Warsaw (19 VI 1926); The First Dionysian Motif; The Premiere in Duisburg (28 X 1928); The Intra- and Inter-Sexual Motifs; The Second Dionysian Motif; The Premiere in Prague (21 X 1932); Three States of the “King’s” Soul; The Third Dionysian Motif; Afterword; Bibliography.

INTRODUCTION

    Szymanowski was born on 6 October 1882 in Timoshivka, Ukraine, and died in 1937 in Lausanne, Switzerland. At first, he studied music at home. At the age of 14 he was already in Vienna, where he first got to listen to Wagner. He studied at the State Conservatory in Warsaw from 1901 to 1904. The Polish composer initially referred to German Romantic tradition, combining the aesthetics of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, to later turn to aesthetic and philosophical vitalism. Early works of young composers – eager to combine erotic and religious motifs – often tend to have a vitalistic character.

   The primary creation of people is often expressed through “holy rules” (Rituals, Algorithms, Hymns, Myths, Parables) that are gathered together in canonical collections (Codes, Literary Models, e.g. Bible, Gospels, Koran, Kabbalah etc.). These works ought to be analysed from theological, gnostic, kabbalistic etc. as well as logical, biographical and aesthetic perspectives. They are “Hagith” (1912-1913) and “King Roger” (1918-1924).

   “King Roger” was composed in different places in Europe and America – during the composer’s stays in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Austria and the USA. Its main symbolic reference was Sicily of II century AD. The history of king Roger II, on whose court a great geographer of those times, Mohamed Edrisi, lived, served as the model scenario. Mohamed was a sage of his times, master among masters, who knew all the mysteries of “the whole wide world”.

On the psychological level, the opera shows Szymanowski’s transition from the symbolic system of the mother (the culture of childhood, the system based on dreams) to the symbolic system of the father (the culture of adulthood, idealistic system).

Three major motifs interweave in the libretto of “King Roger”: that of the “Priest” (I act), “King” (II act) and “Sagacity” (III act). Due to the much fashionable gender theory, directors and critics stress the relevance of eroticism as an individuation drive that leads man from his “I” (and his mask) to his “self” (his unmasking), to revealing his needs, them being different at the beginning and at the end of his life’s journey.

   Out of many productions David Pountney presented the best interpretation of the “King Roger” libretto, giving it consistency based on the Dionysian religious-erotic layer of the opera’s message. This paper is an analysis of the archetypal idea of mystical-erotic initiation in the world of transformations that take place in man’s life cycle.

THE MOTIF OF THE “KING” IN KAROL SZYMANOWSKI’S OPERA

    Among the composers who analysed the archetype of the “king” are: Georg Friedrich Händel – “Serse” (or “Xerxes”) (the death of the sovereign), Igor Stravinsky – “Oedipus Rex” (king as the victim of unconsciousness), Karol Szymanowski – “King Roger” (king faced with “new times”), Krzysztof Penderecki – “Ubu Rex” based on A. Jarry’s play (king as a symbol of a stupid sovereign) and others.

   Many works on “kings” were devoted to the sovereigns of England and Britain (e.g. Hector Berlioz “King Lear” op.  4, Vitaliy Balakiriev “King Lear”, Edvard Grieg “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from the suit “Peer Gynt”, Camille Saint-Saëns “Henri VIII”. Ludomir Różycki devoted a work to the Polish king Bolesław II the Bold.

   Szymanowski’s “Hagith” can be deemed another story about “kings”. It is a one-act opera written in times when Ukraine, as a former constituent part of Poland, was under the rule of Russian tsars.

   When the Vienna-based publishing house “Universal” sent Szymanowski “several dozens of librettos”, he chose the one that seemed “plausible” to him (a play by an Austrian poet Felix Dormann entitled “Hagith”) and composed music to it, including a biblical motif into the Polish spiritual tradition. The one-act opera was put on at The Grand Theatre in Warsaw (5 May 1922). The next stagings took place in Darmstadt (1923), and after World War II in the Silesian Opera in Bytom (1962) and the Cracow Opera (1964).

   Ethnic, religious and erotic tones interweave in Szymanowski’s music. “You see, it’s a story of an old king’s dream to regain youth. A doctor-wizard wants to give it back to him through beautiful Hagith. However, she, though a slave, will not let anyone force her to serve the king. She would rather continue to daydream and have an erotic fantasy about a young prince. After the king’s death, Hagith is given a sentence of stoning. The young king then remembers her, but all he can get is the news of her death” (Szymanowski 1984, p. 364).

   The process of Szymanowski’s creative transgression was deepened by the revolution of 1905 and his father’s death, then the breakout of World War I, and finally the October Revolution of 1917, World War I and Poland’s regaining independence in 1918. Here is what the Polish composer told the New York fortnightly magazine “Musical America” (issue 8, 1921,  interviewer: John A. Henderson). “War – he said – opened a door not only in music, but also in all the other domains of thought and in all the fields of art. Poland remained entangled in the network of determinants between Russia and Germany, and could not develop normally on its own. Slavic influences came from Russia and Germanic ones flew in from Germany, while Poland is neither this nor the other” (Szymanowski 1984, p. 336).

   For 123 years Poland was annexed by Russia, Austria and Germany. Polish artists had no choice but to determine their identity in conditions of psychological pressure and political repressions, accepting, omitting, or rejecting the influences of the invaders. Regaining political independence facilitated Szymanowski’s flight from under the pressure of the invaders’ cultures and the development of his own creative idiom.

   The reality of slaves and subjects is often expressed through “postcolonial fantasies” on the “motif of the king”, his personal and his system’s vicissitudes. Sometimes, overcoming one’s own subject status restricted by ethnic, cultural and geographical limitations makes it possible to develop an individual “talent”, a dynamism that transcends one’s “I” to regions that are physically inaccessible, forbidden or unknown. These realities also transcend to the “talent”.

THE POSTCOLONIAL SYNDROME IN KAROL SZYMANOWSKI’S OPERATIC MUSIC

    As studies on the “postcolonial syndrome” show, meaning and values become reversed in people who were enslaved for many years and then released. What was negative comes to be positive, the foe becomes a friend, the victim becomes an executioner, the layman – a priest etc. So, the once enslaved would now like to have their own slaves, and the former democrats want to become autocrats etc.

   Very often, people who were freed from the rule of one king start to dream of their own king, seeing themselves next to him as lords, not slaves, executioners, not victims, sages, not fools. The conversion tends to become a political, ethical or aesthetical perversion. This is the phenomenon we deal with in the case of artists from colonial countries who suddenly begin to be creators of the worlds that they had so far fought against, just re-labelling them from “foreign” to “our own”.

   Artists from colonial and postcolonial countries, such as Poland, had to go through a spiritual filter to free themselves from the foreign tarnish of lifestyle and the way of thinking. Young Karol Szymanowski had to redefine and integrate them in his personality during the revolution and war, which in an unexpected turn changed his former aesthetic orientations.

   Szymanowski preserved his primary aesthetic landmarks inherited from his homeland Ukraine and cultural-homeland Russia (Rimski-Korsakov, Skriabin, Stravinsky). He also searched for them in projection identifications, in cultures of Austria and Germany, his personal studies of music which he valued so deeply that he wrote (and said) about his studies in Germany, which he had formally never taken up.

   “Certainly, I can sense the revolution happening in my music. You can’t help it. Just imagine that your country was stuck in a state that was practically enslavement and then suddenly became free. Is it at all possible for such a fact not to influence every domain of life in this country? That’s hard to imagine. All values have been reformed. We had deep respect towards German achievements in many fields. It was not until the war that we opened our eyes” (Szymanowski 1984, p. 357).

   What Szymanowski said about his studies in Germany is not only a compensatory “aesthetic-geographical fantasy” that is frequent in people deprived of real contacts with ideal objects, charismatic personalities who played important roles in other great cultures. It is also a conviction that in his musical standards German achievements equalled Russian standards, forming the necessary counterbalance for them. “It was what you had to do in these times” (Szymanowski 1984, p. 358).

   False memory (especially in artists) is a protective factor used by those deprived of the basis of their identity, real or dreamed of. That he had a strong need for psychological profit and loss balance, we can learn from another thought Szymanowski expressed while in the USA, earning his living as a pianist and learning about the world of mechanisms, personal (and material) influences on the Western culture.

   We can find these words – “Here in America, as in Western Europe, people don’t realize that the Russian border constitutes the border between the Western and Eastern worlds”.(Szymanowski 1984, p. 357). Szymanowski identifies his multiple experiences of border situations also in his creation , whose essence is the idea of existential and cultural borders.

   The ethnic or psychological identification of a creator does not have to be a leading indicator of his works. “The character of any nation’s music does not always come down by default to one type of rhythm or another. In other words, neither all Polish music has to follow the rhythm of the mazurka, nor all music in the rhythm of the mazurka has to be typically Polish” (Szymanowski 1984, p. 357).

   The question of whether the music or culture must (or can) have a “nationality” was of great significance in the times of Poland’s statehood’s rebirth and the formation of European nations after WWI. Szymanowski states clearly that ethnics is not the same thing as ethics or aesthetics. The polarization of the world, its division into western and eastern, or northern and southern parts, remains up to the present day an object of research and analyses of arts and humanistic studies.

   Russia and the USA were two ends of the world for Poles, one of them being based on imperial and postimperial principles, the other on colonial and postcolonial ones. The former was dominated by compulsions understood in a totalitarian way, the latter – by freedoms understood globalistically. Modern cultures based on liberalism and democracy formed in between them. The situation today looks similar. That may be the reason why the message of “King Roger’s” libretto from the early 20th century still finds an echo in the thinking and analyses of the beginning of 21st century.

   The European totalitarian regimes – national-socialist and communistic – tried to re-shape the ancient European myths of kings into a general myth of the shepherd, using mythology, mystical functions of work and eroticism. Today, such political and ethical makeovers are made through globalistic ideas based on the principles of democracy, socialism and liberalism that, at the same time, try to separate themselves from their religious and mythological roots. Also, they distance themselves from both ancient and modern cultural ideas and standards of the Arab world.

“KING ROGER” – THE PREMIERE IN WARSAW (19 VI 1926)

    The premiere of “King Roger” on 19 June 1926 had fabulous scenic design by Wincent Drabik, a painter and scenographer of Warsaw theatres. “Drabik is good at the Old Testament. His decorations are sure to cause a furore” (Szymanowski 1984, p. 363). Similarly, today’s decorations, due to great artists employed in the Grand Theatre, compete with the music and stage adaptation of operas.

   We do not know much about what Karol Szymanowski said about “King Roger’s” premiere in Warsaw. The composer claimed that comments made after premieres tended to be misjudged and “unfair”, and he was going to make some corrections. The libretto of “King Roger” is full of religious contents, referring to ancient Greece, Persia, Rome, Asia and Europe. It is written in an esoteric fashion and refers to tales, parables and meditations.

   One reviewer stated: “I am not sure if one can understand and grasp (originally “if masses can understand and grasp”) the artistic beauty of the pagan victory over Christianity, the triumph of the Hellenic cult of nature over the medieval superstitions and cruelty; and finally, I am not sure if Polish souls – filled with centuries-old Catholicism – will be enraptured by the thesis that he is god who gives us the greatest portion of delight” (Adam Wieniawski, issues 166 and 168, “Rzeczpospolita” 20, 22 VI 1926, quoted in: Szymanowski 1984, p. 493).

   The text is filled with religious metaphors, it is in the fashion of the “Young Poland” movement, verbose, symbolic, and can be interpreted like the Rorschach inkblot test: depending on the spectator’s, listener’s or reader’s individual projections based on literary or musical visions different from that of Szymanowski.

   Wieniawski’s interpretation, which Szymanowski criticized, is just in unmasking the hidden message of the libretto. Though the author of the music and libretto does not agree with it, trying to prevent it from being perceived through the prism of the opposition between the victorious paganism and defeated Christianity. “An expression of a deeper misjudgement of »King Roger’s« fundamental idea would indeed be difficult to find” (Szymanowski 1984, p. 493).

   He explains: “Above all, identifying »medieval superstitions and cruelty« with Christian ideals, and Hellenic spirit with cheap hedonism: the religion of use and delight leads to an utter confusion of notions. Apart from that, accusing the play’s authors – brought up in a most profound Christian culture that has its deep roots in the Hellenic ideas – of propagating not only dissolute, but utterly naive, ideas of paganism’s triumph, uplifts the confusion to an absurd level” (Szymanowski 1984, p. 493-494).

   Aspiring to be Poland’s most prominent composer, Szymanowski was afraid of being suspected of spreading a “seditious ideology” in his opera. But it is exactly the case here, despite the author’s and composer’s fears and idiosyncrasy. To prove that the indignation was right, critics refer to Szymanowski’s erudition (T. Chylińska published reprints of books by Tadeusz Zieliński – the greatest expert in Greek culture in pre-war Poland; cf. Szymanowski 1989).

   Other authorities referred to here are Muratov and Nietzsche. Interestingly, the Nietzschean trace present in Szymanowski’s system of philosophical references was not further studied (especially regarding Szymanowski’s Wagner inspirations). Nor was it analysed in the Nietzschean fashion.

   It is possible that one of the libretto’s authors, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, knew other German studies as well, e.g. that of Th. Mommsen, thanks to whom the significance of Dionysian issues was appreciated at the beginning of 20th century, when he published “Epistula consulum ad Teuranos de Bacchanalibus” (CIL, I2, 581). It concerns the letter of consuls on the practices of the Dionysian cult.

   Mommsen (1907) sustained most of Livy’s objections against Dionysus believers, deeming them an expression of political plot against the bases of the Roman country. These might have been the analogies that the librettists of the Polish version of the story about the mystical, ethical and political aspects of the Dionysian cult had in mind.

   Mommsen compared the unification of Germany under the Prussian rule to the Roman conquest of Italia. The unification – through the unification of languages, cultures and political institutions – was in both cases, he believed, the higher goal. According to him, it justified the violence against those who stood on the way to reaching this objective, Dionysus believers being such “hindrances”. The political context of the Dionysian cult was close to the authors, who functioned as subjects in their state. Hence, “King Roger” could be seen as having a message that was out of keeping with the official system of culture and power.

   Szymanowski may have got scared by the interpretation, which removed psychological masks hiding his real spiritual experience. In any case, this was a protective reaction typical in the case psychological “complexes” of artists who would prefer to stay in their hideouts.

“KING ROGER” – THE FIRST DIONYSIAN MOTIF

    New studies of Dionysian rituals (bacchanalia) are presented in an extensive monograph of J.-M. Pailler (1988). Events from the end of 213 AD are described here, when Rome was flooded by foreign sacrificing priests and fortune-tellers. An atmosphere of unwillingness to accept anything that can be described as new and foreign rituals to Roman tradition is described.

   It is also accepted that the events of 186 AD had the character of a social protest. Allegedly, their driving force were the representatives of groups from the margin of traditional Roman society: women, slaves, the released and foreigners deprived of their roots (cf. Gallini 1970).

   Religious associations, independent of the official state structure, generated a feeling of community and allowed for the manifestation of rebellion. The eroticism and mysticism present in the Dionysian rituals comprised an opportunity to flee the hostile reality. Critics claim that the theories of the Italian researcher were strongly influenced by the atmosphere of the late 60’s of 20th century that were marked by the revolt of rebellious youth and the emancipation of the feminist movement.

   Some scholars defend the thesis of the political anti-Roman character of the Bacchanalia, but they oppose the claim that “erotic radicalism” could be a form of manifesting social dissatisfaction in Rome of II century BC. Overweening eroticism had been present in the Hellenic tradition for a long time. In Livy’s description in question accusations are levelled that there were sexual excesses approved of by some and criticized by others (cf. Turcan 1972, p. 3-28).

   In “Ancient Mystery Cults”, W. Burkert (1987) claims that many initiation rites included presenting the death of the newly-admitted, for whom the mysteries was the beginning of a new life. Sexual symbolism played a major part in the rites, influencing the emotional sphere of the believers.

   The uninitiated, struck by the strangeness of the symbolism, did not understand it; hence the numerous accusations of debauchery. Was this what Szymanowski had feared? After all, he was an artist who unravelled (consciously or not) the hidden meaning of all religious systems in their aesthetic, psychological, political and erotic spheres.

“KING ROGER” – THE PREMIERE IN DUISBURG (28 X 1928)

    The Warsaw premiere was interpreted and staged in accordance with the fullest knowledge of the secret Dionysian sect, which formed an association standing in opposition to the official culture. Later on, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, inspired by the associations set up in Europe in the 20’s of 20th century (patterned after a German society in Heidelberg) dreamt of creating one in Poland.

   As we learn from Iwaszkiewicz’s “Diary”, he did not mean a political movement at all, but rather a cultural one, based on Greek motifs. In the meantime, the German staging of “King Roger” met with a negative reception from German nationalists, expressed during the spectacle. This way, paradoxically, the hidden political message of the opera, related to the German’s (recent invaders of Poland) colonial mentality, was confirmed

   The German premiere of “King Roger” took place in the Operatic Theatre in Duisburg (Westphalia) on 28 X 1928. It was directed by Alexander Schum, with Paul Drach as the music director and Johannes Schroeder as the scenographer. It was quite a success, with many members of the audience expressing their approval after the first two acts.

   But then, after the III act: “I can hear, satisfied, that the success is even greater than after the second one. Finally, I walk on the stage, accompanied by the performers, the director etc., and among the frenetic applause I can hear whistles and boos whose »friendly« character I can not doubt. Stravinsky would have been delighted, but I am totally shocked. What the hell, there is nothing so revolutionary in »Roger« that could infuriate the German audience that has seen all sorts of things, and, moreover – is well brought up” (Szymanowski 1984, p. 393).

   “The director tells me: »Don’t heed it, they are stahlhelm people (!!!) – just go«. I go on the stage again. The great audience, irritated by the boos, does not leave the amphitheatre and keeps applauding while the boos are getting stronger. This lasted for about 20 minutes and I had to bow at least 15 times before they started to turn off the lights and everything settled down” (Szymanowski 1984, p. 393).

   The Duisburg staging of “King Roger” was an important cultural event in Germany: “I particularly liked the director’s part. Young and enthusiastic, Dr Schum resembles our Schiller in his avocation and the way he deals with the crowd. Therefore, “Roger’s” plot livened up amazingly and got more diverse due to the movement of the choir and supernumeraries. Especially the second act saw an excellent solution for the group scenes, the crowd’s growing and the anxiety in the background” (Szymanowski 1984, p. 395).

   The Germans issued a special 16 pages long brochure entitled “Karol Szymanowski”, where, apart from an article on “The Young Poland Movement” in music and opera by E. Młynarski , a short biography and an article by Ludwig Lade from Munich, reproductions of the composer’s letters (of 8 X 1928) and three sketches on J. Schroeder’s scenography were included.

   Szymanowski and Iwaszkiewicz never ceased to be fascinated by German culture. They could feel grateful that, having left the Russian annexed territory and being treated as “strange” in their motherland, they were appreciated by the Germans. It was especially Szymanowski that was ignored by the system of the official culture and its institutions for many years.

   Even when, due to the recognition of his talent, he was appointed the president of the Warsaw Conservatory, he soon had to leave the post, accused of promoting “strange” ideas in his musical works. They were accused of “derivative nature” by professors who treated artistic work in a schematic, dogmatic and relict way.

“KING ROGER” – THE INTRA- AND INTER-SEXUAL MOTIFS

    One of the “strange” elements due to which some members of the Polish elite were unfavourably disposed to the works of Szymanowski and Iwaszkiewicz were the erotic tones encoded in the music and libretto – inter-sexual (perverted) and intra-sexual (inverted) motifs. They forgot that an opera can be analysed in the way Søren Kierkegaard did it describing the stages of “direct eroticism” in Mozart’s “Don Juan”, and distinguishing the “aesthetic”, “ethical”, and “religious” stages.

   Atypical erotic senses were not to be included in operas, though they were accepted in the cinema, theatre, poetry, operetta or graphical works. This restrictive attitude to motifs relating to Dionysian, Greek standards of eroticism was sanctioned by the ethical fundamentalism of the Judeo-Christian provenance.

   There are not many erotic themes in the film, literary, theatrical or musical works of Polish art of these times. Apart from Witold Gombrowicz, Jan Lechoń, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz and Jerzy Andrzejewski, just a small group of writers and poets tried to introduce to our culture the discourse of the sexual identities discovered in Europe by psychoanalysis (pedophilia, bi- homo- and trans-sexualism, necrophilia, fetishism etc.).

   Religious authorities, the authorities of invaders or occupants, as well as those of free Poland of the interwar and post-World War II period, demanded political, social and religious correctness. Ostracism towards those who did not fit in with the religious, political or military norms of conduct and ethical system that guarded morality was at that time rather common in Europe and Poland.

   Though Poland had Przybyszewski, who was much ahead of Freud’s discoveries, his works did not influence the cultural life in the country, mainly because they were written in German and have not been translated to date. There was also Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, who – mainly as a French translator, writer and journalist – introduced to the cultural market the current of psychoanalytical narration, which was disregarded in Poland.

   It is certainly true that there are many riddles in Szymanowski’s opera that can be solved on the erotic level – on account of the dyads in it (Edrisi – King, King – Shepherd, King – Roxana, Roxana-Shepherd etc.) and numerous multilevel arrangements formed between them, and the psychology and psychopathology of the power of the “king”, “priest” and “shepherd”, as well as their “male” and “female” expressions

   Due to the lack of great erotic narratives in Polish art, their contemporary stagings are anaemic-looking, flat and artificial. They lack an authentic energy that is typical of erotically complete objects. They seem to concern a “third gender”, i.e. neutral sex (the “child’s sex” in W. Stekel’s terms). Most of them tend to exploit the motif of children’s sexuality (infantile, regressive, perverted etc.). This seems to be the dominant model of eroticism in Polish musical and visual plays. It was not until after World War II that a gender analysis of Szymanowski’s opera appeared in the USA, Western European Countries, as well as in Poland.

   We do not know whether Szymanowski knew Magnus Hirschfeld’s work entitled “Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen” and his conception of the “third gender” that was elaborated on, though in a slightly different way, by one of the founders of the psychoanalytic movement – Wilhelm Stekel. Nor do we know if he was acquainted with Adolf Brand’s magazine engaged in promoting Max Stirner’s philosophy, “Der Eigene”, published from 1896 and openly homosexual from 1898 to 1931. Its authors, mostly gay men, fought with the negative influence of German doctors and psychiatrists on the “sexual liberation” movement.

   In Szymanowski’s musical works, the homoerotic motif, either sublime or encoded, is realised as the priest’s, king’s or shepherd’s eroticism. In principle, the last one could be treated as a homosexual phenomenon, distinctly present in “King Roger”. Today, directors are more willing to show the erotic spirituality present at different aesthetic levels throughout Szymanowski’s opera.

“KING ROGER” – THE SECOND DIONYSIAN MOTIF

    At the beginning of 186 BC, Roman consuls were called on to prosecute the secret organization, “the Bacchanalia case” , the worshippers of the Greek God Dionysus (Latin Bacchus), worshipped wherever Greek culture spread. The popularization of his cult was mainly due to travelling priests, holders of the knowledge of holy matters that was passed on from generation to generation.

   A Greek from Etruria was the first promoter of Bacchanalian mysteries on the Tiber. At first, they were attended by women only. But when Annia Pakula from Campania became the priestess of the Greek god (in the early II century), she reorganized the cult so that men could join the worshippers too. It was then that the custom of nightly meetings on the slopes of the Aventine Hill  became widespread. Their celebrants were accused of debauchery and homosexual rapes. They would claim that those who opposed the “widespread vice” were kidnapped by gods or were offered as a sacrifice or that they were concealed in a mysterious cave. Many people, including the nobles, took part in the Dionysian rituals.

   Dionysus-Bacchus worshippers gathered without permission from the authorities and formed a sort of alternative society that even duplicated political institutions. They comprised a threat to the contemporary legal order. A source has survived according to which after a denunciation by Publius Ebutius, forced by his mother and step-father into the initiation of the Dionysian mysteries, an investigation against the worshippers of the Greek god was started in an extraordinary mode, i.e. quaestio extra ordinem.

   The priests of the cult were arrested and the community’s meetings were banned until the end of the investigation. Postumius, the consul, postulated the necessity to prosecute Dionysus’ worshippers for their false religious ideas and for propagating a religion that was strange to Roman tradition. They were found guilty of plotting against the state and many were sentenced to death. Others preferred not to wait for the arrest and would rather die at the hands of themselves.

   The Roman senate forbade the Bacchanalia celebrations in Rome and all Italia, with an exception for places where an altar or statue of the god had been worshipped for many years. Senators granted themselves the right to issue permissions for such gatherings. They could take place when no more than five people took part in them. The Dionysians were not allowed to elect priests or set up any formal structures of their association.

   Livy saw the sources of the “Dionysian malady” in Etruria, where the Greek who propagated the mysteries by the Tiber was said to have come from. Europe of the early 20th century was infected with the “Dionysian illness”. New religious associations and movements were alternative organizations that gathered intellectuals and artists who had alternative views on the present system of power.

   They were united not only by intellectual ideas, but also by ideas of morality, friendship and freedom that, as it is always the case in such situations, took on the form of rituals, cults, kind of mystic orders where new ideas were created to replace the present-day system of power and religion. They were half-confidential, elitist, hierarchical associations united by a kind of sacral identification based on symbolic vitalistic and erotic rituals. Such organizations are seen as a danger to all authorities for they are not manageable and are ruled through ideas rather than institutions.

   “King Roger” depicts an alternative project of spiritual and erotic power that undermines the foundations of the throne and state. The political motif might have been of greater significance to Szymanowski than the religious and erotic ones. The opera presents a Slavic, if not a typically Polish, variant of the “Dionysian illness” – when the alternative is blurred in the female mentality of the “king”, the shepherd with his male mentality disappears.

“KING ROGER” – THE PREMIERE IN PRAGUE (21 X 1932)

    On 21 X 1932 Szymanowski gave an interview in a Prague radio station about the first staging of “King Roger” on the main scene of the Czechoslovakian “Narodni Divadlo” (directed by Professor Josef Munclinger) – Friday, 21 X 1932. It cast Adan Nordenova – soprano (Roxana), Vladimir Toms – tenor, Jaroslav Gleich – tenor (The Shepherd), Zdenek Otava – baritone (King Roger). On 23 (Sunday) the second performance took place.

   The composer expressed his conviction that “King Roger’s” premiere would become the corner stone for Czechoslovakian-Polish musical relationships. “For art, whose purest expression is music, by creating bonds between souls and between hearts, it should contribute deeply to mutual fathoming out and understanding of nations’ psyches” (Szymanowski 1984, p. 330-331). Art is a map of collective souls, set of spiritual standards that determine our identity and psyche.

   Here is what we can read about “King Roger’s” premiere in Prague: “The latest great triumph of the master is the premiere of his opera »King Roger« on the best Prague stage. The music of the Polish master that resounded in the capital of the reborn Czechoslovakian country was broadcast by other European countries’ radio stations. Most interestingly, even Germany, despite the anti-Polish smear campaigns of home-grown chauvinists, regaled its people with officially played music of “des polnischen Komponisten Karl Szymanowski...” (Simsund, in: Szymanowski 1984, p. 431).

   Szymanowski wrote: “Above all, I praise the high artistic level of my work’s adaptation. Narodni Divadlo’s authorities devoted maximum organization, discipline and work to my creation. Therefore, there was not even a slightest dissonance between the stage and the orchestra. Not even once did the orchestra deafen the singers; instead they formed a worthy background to the vocal parts. The talent and enthusiasm of the soloists and bands found an outlet in the most sincere creative zeal. The Prague premiere was, musically and scenically, absolutely the best artistic staging of my opera” (Szymanowski 1989, p. 432).

   Poles are sensitive to positive or negative reactions of others to their achievements. They tend to seek in them some hidden intentions, politics, competition, something not noble. Not infrequently, they practice that attitude towards their nation’s own best sons. Here is what we learn from the next fragments of the conversation: “ – Was the opera broadcast by the Prague radio? – Not only that. It was broadcast by all Czech radio stations. The procedure was the following: during the intervals, the presenter summarized the act, which was illustrated by examples of skilfully picked characteristic moments of »King Roger« played by a pianist. – If I’m not mistaken, The Polish Radio did not transmit the opera? – That’s right. The opera wasn't broadcast on the radio in Poland. For all I know, the authorities of the Czech radio, and even of the Prague Opera, made an official offer to the Polish Radio in Warsaw to let them broadcast the opera. However, this offer – though made twice – did not see any reply from the Polish Radio’s authorities, which brought about quite an amazement among the Prague musical circles... Moreover, at the same time even Germany, thought hostile towards Poland, had an official transmission of the opera” (Szymanowski 1989, p. 433).

   Loneliness, lack of understanding or isolation are always inscribed in the biographies of outstanding artists. Talent always has to fight for the recognition of the less talented or just mediocre. The fate of Szymanowski’s creation also touches upon the structure of our (Polish) psyche, too immature to confront the world. Negating or criticizing do not require any particular effort. Fortunately, the artist’s personality, in general, has the ability to revive many times: “Of course, I don’t feel personally hurt by the disregarding of the premiere – K. Szymanowski said – but I am mentioning this, because, in my opinion, such conduct does not enhance our prestige abroad. It has already happened twice to me. Namely, back in September this year (1932) the Vienna radio devoted, entirely spontaneously, a whole evening to broadcast one of my concerts, which the Polish Radio also refused to transmit. I'm not discouraged by this, though!” (Szymanowski 1989, p. 433).

   The perception of Szymanowski’s first works was not enthusiastic, or even friendly, in Poland. Critics would dwell on their tendency to yield to Russian and French influences. It was his later music, with ethnic inspirations, based on Polish highland rhythm and realizing the spiritual model of our national character, the hysterical-skirtotymic type, that had a warmer reception (cf. E. Brzezicki).

   “According to my friend Grzegorz Fitelberg, my opera’s premiere is due in Warsaw. Of course, I would also like to have it staged in Lviv, where, apart from that, my highland ballet »Harnasie«, as seems very likely, is going to be put on” (Szymanowski 1989, p. 433). It is worth mentioning, however, that “Harnasie” was not, after all, staged in Lvov.

   For many years, the meditative, mystical music of Szymanowski was not appreciated. Paradoxically, its new reception might have been enhanced by the “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” of Mikołaj Górecki, who bears resemblance to Szymanowski’s idiom. Also, a new trend of interest in Szymanowski’s music appeared due to it being an Eastern variant of the Western motif of the loss of godly power and long-lived mourning reactions. It is facilitated by the fashion for new religiousness and discovering its links with aesthetics and eroticism.

“KING ROGER” – THREE STATES OF THE “KING’S” SOUL

   The first sequence of “King Roger’s” libretto starts from Greek and Hebrew     words Hagios, Hagios, Hagios (three times Holy), Kyrios (Greek for Lord) Theos (Greek for God), Sabaoth (Hebrew for Almighty) – biblical names of God, who is worshipped by Cherubs, Powers and Majesty. One of the archetypical figures of the opera is the person (role) of the King as a spiritual and political deputy of God on Earth. The King is God’s brother, son or reflection. He is the the liaison and the priest of collective life. The king must create and imitate God to be his image and expression.

   Thanks to his position in the social and cosmic structure, he establishes the meaning, continuity and order between the Heaven and Earth. To sustain the order, he has a deputy, a “step brother”, who is devoted to him as a friend, lover, teacher and judge etc., both as a friend (symbolon) and a “stranger” (diabolos), foe and victim who gets killed, vanishes, changes his identity or dies.

   “The King’s Brother” can be a traveller, fool, beggar, loony, blind man and he usually causes anxiety. His appearance may either bring force or take it away. Szymanowski’s and Iwaszkiewicz’s libretto is constructed on antinomies – the godly King and his court against the godly Shepherd and his company. The first sequence of the opera’s text is a call for powers to come back and for justice towards sin and guilt to be revived.

   The power of eroticism, so far hidden and subdued, becomes intriguing and captivating. The erotic energies emerge as destructive forces in the kingdom. A new anthropological reality is represented by the hidden part of the King’s (and his kingdom’s) personality, always embodied by the person from the bottom of the social hierarchy (here – the Shepherd). Thanks to him, the alternative comes to be the normative.

   The driving force of creation in every man’s transformation is according to C. G. Jung “The Anima” – the female energy which is here represented by the “King’s Wife” (Roxana): “The bird of wisdom is speaking through the Queen’s lips” (Libretto). The operatic apocrypha of Szymanowski depicts a local story that combines the Hebrew theology of the exclusive God with the Greek theology of the inclusive God, and mystic cosmology with political theology.

   Szymanowski’s God is Christ, the Jewish Messiah, who claims to be the representative of the Only God. His acceptance and recognition brought about divisions within the very womb of God and humankind. The Shepherd is a messiah of another God and his acceptance can cause a similar division and anthropological chaos. “Lord, punish him! Let him not blaspheme! Let him not insult Christ our Lord! O King, you who are just!”. These words indicate the cosmic (theological) threat to the earthly kingdom.

The Shepherd is “youngish; his hair like copper, all in curls, dressed in a goatskin, like every shepherd; his eyes are like stars, and his smile is full of mystery”. The godly signs protect and distinguish him. He can not be destroyed or killed as he comes from the theological order. He presents himself as a man, but he is a god. The Shepherd’s distinctive features are his figure, voice, “eyes” and “smile”. He sings the praises of the “Unknown God” and is regarded as a blasphemer.

   Szymanowski refers in his opera (a theological-political mystery) to Greek iconography, whose traces we can find in Plato’s works, in the parts where he talks about the soul and its images. It is combined with the Shepherd’s myth (cf. Poimandres’s “The Shepherd of Men”), a message that comprised the canon at the beginning of Christianity. This motif is included in some esoteric gospels that were composed by groups of spiritual followers of Christ’s sect within the Alexandrian Greek-Jewish faction.

   The Shepherd is an aspect of God, marginalized or forgotten, which for Szymanowski is represented by Beauty – “My God is beautiful like I am”. Shepherd is a young god substituting for Orpheus and Dionysus, Narcissus or Oedipus, the saints of the Ganges and Benares, Adonis and Juan (Byron’s and Shelley’s gods).

   The young god looks in the mirror to see his face: he is wingless yet has wings, a wanderer, earthly and heavenly, an inspiration to women’s eyes and ears, a mystic lover; his feet are golden and strong, his clothes are of rosy auroras, a brilliant butterfly, the god of eyesight who lives with what he can see and what surrounds him, what protects and decorates him.

   The Shepherd’s tongue is the shade of green woods, the whisper of distant seas, the thunder of distant storms on oceans under the sun. His energies are illusion and truth, freedom and pain. A blasphemer and prophet, “he loves” and sins. His like Nietzsche’s god – Zarathustra, though the “Golden Christ” still casts a light from the altar. “King, Lord, punish him!” This language and the energy soften Roxana’s hard heart.

   The second sequence of the libretto presents the confrontation between Shepherd and the King. Their dialogue relies on negating and transforming the prophet-blasphemer relation. They are divided by a spiritual force – death’s abyss and hell, magic power, complemented by dancing and singing, the cries of waves and the fire of blood. The worlds of the King and Shepherd share the same hopes and misfortunes. The great poets of English Romanticism, Byron and Shelley, as well as the Protestant theologian, the father of existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard, believed that poetry was a new religion.

   The Shepherd has a syntonic and catatonic talent – “You draw your dark power from the bottom of hell!”. He lives in a symbiosis with death – “You lead the crowd to the abyss of death!” The syntony expresses the archetypal “dramatic effect”. Every now and then, the perspective changes, and the left becomes the right, the front comes at the back and the other way round. As Heraclitus put it: “The way up and the way down are one and the same”.

   In the Christian and Roman times, marked by Judaism, the way up and down were also the same, but the way up (anodos) and down (katodos) came to be different, opposites. In Jewish and Roman law, everything is determined by the logics of symmetry and asymmetry, the dynamics of surplus and deficit, the necessity of exchange, the principle of unbalance, extreme conditions, the mechanisms of fight that stand up to the ancient principle of harmony and balance.

   In “King Roger’s” libretto the conglomeration of norms and principles, models and anti-models, cultural and axiological as well as religious and political syncretism allow the loosening of the hierarchy, making changes, attitudes and masks. They enforce an existential game based on numerous rules and make communication more complicated. Nonsense comes in the form of chaos (the symbol of misfortune). The King loses his position, replaced by a travelling god (The Shepherd), a priest without a shrine, a king with no kingdom, a powerless lord. The King and the Shepherd are images of the same god – one is stationary, imperial and patriarchal, the other – travelling and matriarchal.

   The story of the King and the Shepherd can be described in terms of an individuation process. The King’s Shadow is the Shepherd, who unravels his desires, dreams, hidden needs, sexual fantasies, the lust for power, delusions of greatness and his weakness. “The Anima” (Romana) stands on the way as an individuation drive, who awakens the Shepherd’s erotic consciousness.

   The Shepherd is an Oedipal symbol of the King, unmasking his complexes, which is why Roxana’s intervention is needed. She is their first stabilizing factor (“The Anima”), the second one being Edrisi (“The Great Sage”), who lives in the King’s palace. It is thanks to them that the King’s and Shepherd’s consciousness find themselves at a spiritual level. Once they meet, they can part as independent life energies – without a fight and injuries.

   In religious terms, the Shepherd is a symbolic figure, a pre-Christian synthesis of the Greek gods, Apollo and Dionysus, who comes as a messiah, Christ (in a “goatskin”). This is what Szymanowski may have had in mind when he criticized Wieniawski for his review that stressed only the Dionysian aspect of the libretto in the Warsaw premiere staging of the opera.

   Contemporary critics think along the three lines: Apollonian, Dionysian (or their synthesis) and a deconstruction line, which sees the erotic codes of the play to be the central problem. The Shepherd is an icon of ancient religions. He is derived from various mythologies, symbolizing the vitalistic, erotic components, being both rebellious towards their structures and dependent on them.

   His actions are linked to the projection of youth, maleness that seeks a relation with a female component in physiological, psychological and social forms. He is free and so his power of attraction is limitless. He is also the icon of “women’s culture”, their secret god who appeals to their senses, irrespective of their cultural, religious or political affiliations.

   The third sequence of “King Roger’s” libretto shows that the Shepherd, who represents the collective unconsciousness of the King’s company, does not endanger the King. Each of them is an aspect of the other, his antithesis, that reveals itself in a crisis.

   The “King’s” individuation reaches the level of the “Self”. “The King shattered his sword of bronze... The great King has appeared for trial!”. The judgement is a judgement of change. The hero is taken over by Reality, a hidden aspect of the “God” – “Self” that appears in the King’s fantasies. The emotional process of the King’s revival is made possible through the energy of the female element and the act of Oedipal separation – the departure of the Shepherd.

   Now, the main part of “King Roger’s” libretto is the one of the court geographer. “Edrisi! Wings are growing! / They’ll embrace the whole world! / And from the depth of loneliness, from the abyss of my might, I’ll tear out my clear heart, I’ll offer it to the sun!”. The announcement of the magical, religious and mystical sacrifice of his own heart brings to mind cardiopatic religions. The English production was actually the first ones to take up the interpretation of this motif in 2009.

   Edrisi, Idrisi, Abu Abdallah Mahommed (1100-1166) was one of the greatest medieval geographers. He made numerous journeys in North Africa, Asia Minor and the Iberian Peninsula. Sicily’s king, Roger II, commissioned him to draw the first great map of the Earth since Ptolemaeus. Edrisi’s map, also known as “Charta Rogeriana”, shows the geographical knowledge of Arabs that considerably outdistanced the knowledge of European scholars of that period. Edrisi merges the discoveries of Ptolemaeus, accounts of Arab travellers, knowledge that he amassed while on the court of Roger II and during his own voyages. His descriptions include a thorough image of Southern and South-Western Europe, Muslim countries in Asia and Africa, and many details concerning China and East Asia. His role is realized in secrecy, at the level of the unconsciousness that steers the cognition of heaven and earth.

   Great geographers of antiquity were worshipped like saints. They knew the world not only from the perspective of the travels they made, but also from the mystical, cosmological perspective of God. And he is the only one to see the world as a whole. The English staging in 2009 depicted Roger’s position from two perspectives – Edrisi’s and Roxana’s, treating it as an image of erotic game and the rituals practised within the Dionysian sect from the II century AD, when this religious cult was only being established, replacing the women’s erotic cult of the Shepherd.

“KING ROGER” – THE THIRD DIONYSIAN MOTIF

    The author of the classical monograph on the cult of Dionysus in Italy, A. Bruhl (1953) demonstrated that the cult of the Greek god enjoyed great popularity in Etruria already at the end of I century. He proved that the Dionysian religion in Italy, apart from the Hellenic core, comprised many elements of native Italian tradition, and Bacchic components were to be found in the original Italian cults, e.g. the old cult of Liber Pater.

   It is sometimes assumed that it was under the influence of the Etruscan people, and not directly the Greeks, that the Dionysian-Bacchus cult took on the orgiastic character, the proof of it being the fact that women played a leading role at the initial phase of Bacchanalia development.

   Thanks to the excavation campaign in Bolsena (1968-1973) (Etr. Velzna, Roman Volsinie), organized by archaeologists of the French School in Rome, it was possible to specify that the group was set up in about 200 BC and dissolved in the 80’s of II century. Terracotta elements of Bacchic decoration were found along with an empty throne in an underground room. The throne’s sides are decorated with images two bacchoi, mounting seated panthers. The third figure that can be discerned is accompanied by a peacock.

   These animals occupy an important place in the images of Dionysian processions, since they commemorate Dionysus’s expedition to India. Other rooms, pools and tanks used for cleansing, and a long pavement leading to stairs were discovered. It was a dromos, i.e. a symbolic stairway to Hades.

   The Etruscan centre was a place of public cult, unlike the secretive Roman centre. The concurrence of the destruction of the Etruscan cult centre and the Roman authorities’ actions against the worshippers of Dionysus is disturbing. As J. Granet (1990) writes, the Bacchanalia case came up in Rome only because the cult of Dionysus and its doctrine and characteristic rituals gained many supporters on the Tiber.

   It seems that in the latest “King Roger’s” staging of the English director David Pountney, all these “Dionysian” discoveries were taken into account and used in a perfect way – aesthetically, technically and musically, and thus artistically. The director interpreted Szymanowski’s work in a sapiential (contemporary) manner, leaving out the sacerdotal motif (two gates, standing like columns, sacerdotal robes). The entire action takes place on the stairs that are a Greek theatre, shrine and secret stairway to the underworld (trapdoors).

   This triple world is at the same time a home, shrine, palace, runway, shelter, theatron, Hades, eroticon. It is a dramatic and erotic architectural structure that facilitates the cyclic liberation of the personae from changeable states of the body and soul.

   This staging matches the anthropological structure of the world that seeks to deposit its energies in forces of spirituality (God), power (The King), knowledge (The Sage), youth (The Shepherd), the female (The King’s Wife) and collectivity that organize themselves around the archetypical centres of power and existence.

   Noteworthy, it is the first staging to make use of the motif of the sage (Edrisi) in such an accurate way. As well as the motif of transformation, the metamorphosis of the animal and the divine nature of man.

   When life becomes limited to a religious or erotic dream alone, when it is just a dream of youth and divinity, it may well turn out that, once awake, man will continue to live with dreams only. But life in dreams changes man into a person who keeps making mistakes, who becomes for good their dream, fantasy or psychotic illusion from which they can never be woken up. And if they are woken up, they will notice they are naked! As their “I” is, which lives in dreams.

AFTERWORD

    The opera answers the need to celebrate border states and events, showing them in slow motion. It stimulates the listener  and viewer to synaestetic perception of the world, to syntonic-catatonic identification with the character’s fate – to be dead or dying, suffering, fighting or guilty of their fantasies and actions that exclude them from the present system of acceptance.

   Szymanowski’s “King Roger” is a story of individuation – a narcissistic wound, symbiotic relationship with a woman, Oedipal separation, and confronting one’s self with a flood of spiritual power that manifests itself cyclically in images and experiences of nothingness. Szymanowski uses the story of King Roger II to tell about the loss of his father, just as Franz Schubert (to the text by J. W. Goethe) in his “Der Erlkönig” shows the tragedy of a father who loses his son. In both cases, the figure of the father is an emanation of the “King” as the symbol of the father’s self.

   The idea of “duality”, “dualism”, “dyad”, “biformity” plays a major role in the individuation process. It has a reparatory character and is a response to traumatic experiences. The ability of being a part of a “dyad”, or even the obsession of “dyad”, is at the basis of great love relationships. It is based on symbiotic abilities, the need of incorporating another person into one’s “I”, and in the case of an artist or philosopher, the need to “beget in beauty” (Plato).

   The phenomenon of “two-as-one” can be found in works of many artists. Over a half of Szymanowski’s works are “dyadic” literary-musical works, with two authors, the composer’s music and poets’ texts (Tetmajer, Kasprowicz, Berent, Wyspiański, Miciński, Iwaszkiewicz, Iłłakowiczówna, Liebert and Mombert, Buckle, Bodenstedt, Reif, Dehmel, as well as Hafiz of Shiraz, Dzhalaleddin Rumi, Rabindranath Tagore, James Joyce, Homer). Similar duality concerns two of his operas – “Hagith” (1910) and “King Roger” (1918-1924).

   The libretto and music of Szymanowski’s “King Roger” can be analysed from the perspective of Jung’s individuation theory, as an expression of Christian gnosis, or, at a deeper level, from the perspective of Jewish kabbalah, which requires an appropriate level of cultural erudition and competence. Certainly such a message is encoded in the opera.

   The analysis of “psychological relations” that the artistic “I” has fantasies about, makes us refer to various literary contexts, e.g. Mark Twain’s novel “The Prince and the Pauper”, Juliusz Słowacki’s “Hour of Thought” (“Godzina myśli”) or Thomas Mann’s “The Transposed Heads”. Changing one’s identity through adopting other people’s identities is a constant process of transgression, an attempt to enhance or boost one’s self-esteem, situate one’s “self” on the highest possible level. “King Roger” is an image of the individuation and “self” of the composer, who discovers his own “I” entangled in the Oedipus complex.

   The opera charts the process of the separation of the individual “self” from important figures – the father – the king, the educator – the sage, the brother – The Shepherd, the mother – The Queen/King’s Wife etc. The opera’s characters embody different parts of the creator’s “I” that comes under the high pressure of history, biography, fate. The opera celebrates, in a sublime way, the mystery of the identity of man who lives on the border of epochs, cries over the dramatic course of action for individual people and the European culture of the early 20th century.

   So far, “King Roger” has been staged in Poland: Warsaw (1926, 1965, 1983, 1986, 2000), Gdańsk (1974), Cracow (1976, 1982), Poznań (1979), Bytom (1980), Lublin (1982), Wrocław (1982) and other European cities: Duisburg (1928), Prague (1932), Palermo (1949, 1992), London (1975, 1976), Dortmund (1986), Bremen (1988), Stuttgart (1997), and recently in – Saint Petersburg, Edinburgh, Bonn, Paris, Bregenz, Madrid and Barcelona. Music lovers from across the ocean have had the chance to see it too: Buenos Aires (1981), Long Beach (1988), Sydney (1990), Buffalo (1992), Detroit (1992) Annandale-on-Hudson (USA). One of the best Polish productions is the spectacle directed by Mariusz Treliński (Wroclaw 2000). Worth noting in this spectacle is Boris Kudlička’s stage design and an outstandingly played role of the Shepherd.

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