Dramaturgia mitu i tragedii: „Król Roger” Karola Szymanowskiego w tyglu (pop)kultury

Abstract

This article discusses the tragedic aspects of Karol Szymanowski’s 20th-century opera King Roger op. 46. The work’s dramaturgical design was crucially influenced by ancient models (especially Euripides’ The Bacchae) as well as Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of tragedy and music drama. The first part of the article presents theatrical aspects of King Roger’s tragedic character, drawing on selected stagings of this opera (by Mariusz Treliński, Krzysztof Warlikowski, and Kasper Holten), which addressed the problems of the disintegration of the world and the crisis of values. It is observed that their dramaturgy centers around the axis of references to the crisis of contemporary culture and questions about the individual’s and the community’s reactions to the threat caused by the Dionysian element. Based on an analysis of the dramatic structure of the libretto and the composer’s statements about his creative process, the author emphasizes the significance of the theatrical aspects of opera. She stresses how important it was for Szymanowski to achieve an adequate compromise within the fusion of arts and horizons, including the Dionysian and Apollonian tendencies in the work’s ideological program.

Keywords

• music drama
• tragedy
• opera
• dramaturgy of myth
• karol szymanowski
• friedrich nietzsche