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Teatro Massimo, ''King Roger''

Palermo

The installation used five big framed backdrops made of black FOT - Otello velvet and painted by Laboratori del Teatro Massimo.In the image: the executive sketch of three of the backdrops, of which that central, the backdrop ''Angels'', was actually a framed scene destined to be raised and lowered during the stage action.
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The detail of one of the executives underlines the refined person sketch of the Byzantine mosaic then reproduced by the Laboratori del Teatro Massimo on the backdrop in black FOT - Otello velvet.The happy source of inspiration of Yannis Kokkos is traceable in the marvelous mosaics of the Chiesa della Martorana in Palermo, revised with an admirable pictorial ability.
The backdrops ''Christ' and ''Angels'' on the stage during the first act of the opera, whose plot take place in the medieval epoch, in a Sicilian church, during a solemn mass.The theme of King Roger is the conflict between the Christian church of medieval Sicily and the pagan cult of Dyonisus, that exalts the beauty and the pleasure, proclaimed by a young shepherd-prophet.
Certainly it was unusual the interest for medieval Sicily of Karol Szymanovski (1882-1937), a noble composer with Polish origin, probably due also to his sensibility towards the matter of the opera, that offered him the pretext to underline the anachronism of the church in comparison to the emission of dionysiac energies of great vitality.
An opposition that Szymanovski probably perceived to be of contemporary actuality and that it underlined in King Roger with the se of archaic idioms and Byzantine musical themes.The conflict between the church and the shepherd-prophet is also the incarnation of the antithetical strengths that shake the protagonist Roger.
The backdrops ''Christ'' and ''Angels'' photographed during an exposure of contemporary scenography.The image doesn't reproduce unfortunately, the great suggestion created by the backdrops in such occasion, due as much to their executive quality that as the impression provoked by the majesty of their size (the figures of the angels are around 10 m tall).
The other two backdrops used by the staging (''Castle'' and ''Palm''), as they were represented by the executive sketches.
The backdrop ''Palm'' on the stage.
Król Roger
Opera in three acts
Music
Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937)
Libretto
Karol Szymanowski
Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz
from The Bacchae by Euripide
First night
Warsaw, Teatr Wielki, 16/6/1926
Scenography,
costume design,
stage direction
Yannis Kokkos
Pictorial realizations
Christian Lanni
and Laboratori scenografici del Teatro Massimo di Palermo
Light design
Guido Levi
Choreography
Giovanni Di Cicco
Technical direction
Renzo Milan
Staging
Teatro Massimo of Palermo
Season
2005 / 2006

Materials used in this production

Flat making

Fabric: tailoring types

FOT - Otello

Velvets

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