King Roger (Polish: , Op. 46) is an opera in three acts by Karol Szymanowski to a Polish libretto by the composer himself and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, the composer's cousin. The score was finished in 1924. The opera received its world premiere on 19 June 1926 at the Grand Theatre, Warsaw, with the cast including the composer's sister, the soprano Stanisława Korwin-Szymanowska, as Roxana. The "Sicilian drama", as he called it, originated from Szymanowski's enthusiasm for Mediterranean culture as a melting pot of different peoples and religions. He spent much time travelling in that area in 1911 and in 1914, and shared his love of the region with Iwaszkiewicz. In the summer of 1918 at Odessa, Szymanowski and Iwaszkiewicz conceived the project, and composed the opera over the period of 1918 to 1924. Szymanowski's lost novel Efebos dealt with mystical themes similar to those that inspired this work; Szymanowski labelled it a "Misterium". Jim Samson has placed King Roger in a musico-psychological analysis of Szymanowski's compositional struggles. Alistair Wightman has briefly discussed Szymanowski's stylised treatment of Arabic musical idioms in the score. Stephen Downes has analysed in detail the themes of "duality" and "transformation" expressed in the music of the opera. Performance history Since its 1926 premiere, stagings of King Roger have been relatively rare. Two productions followed closely, the first at Theater Duisburg, Germany, in October 1928, and the second in October 1932 at the Národní divadlo in Prague. The first post-World War II presentation took place in Palermo in 1949 in the presence of its librettist, conducted by , set design by Renato Guttuso, sang Roger, Clara Petrella sang Roxana, the Shepherd. After that some years passed before the opera was staged again. In 1975, the New Opera Company in London produced the work under the baton of Charles Mackerras. In the USA the opera was first seen in 1981, in a concert version given by the St. Louis Symphony in St. Louis, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. That same year it was presented at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, conducted by Stanisław Wisłocki. Since the late 1980s and into the present century, King Roger seems to have enjoyed something of a revival with about thirteen productions in many different locations. In 1988, the Long Beach Opera in California, known for its innovative approach to the repertoire, had Murry Sidlin as conductor and James Johnson as King Roger, Nancy