Pianist Allen Perriello, baritone Alexander Birch Elliott and soprano Lydia Katarina performed Thursday at the Polish consulate in Chicago. (Photo: Andrzej Baraniak) By Michael Morain Editor At a recital last Thursday at the Polish consulate in Chicago, a soprano in an elegant black dress stood near a grand piano, in front of a bank of arched windows overlooking Lake Shore Drive. She scanned the audience, took a sly breath and let fly an A-flat as high and clear as the crystal chandelier. “Śpijcie, śpijcie, sny królewskie … sleep, sleep, royal dreams. You dream of happiness and power.” It could have been a scene from Ann Patchett’s “Bel Canto” but was actually a preview of Des Moines Metro Opera’s production of “King Roger,” a rarely performed work that marks its 100th anniversary in June. The company presented the event for about 50 dignitaries and donors at the invitation of Poland’s consul general in Chicago, where Polish-Americans take pride in their roots. On Saturday, DMMO’s general and artistic director, Michael Egel, did a round of interviews for the city’s Polish media outlets. “It’s always a thrill for us when we can come together to celebrate great works of art that inspire unique partnerships and create new friendships,” Egel told the assembled guests. He explained that “King Roger” tells the tale of a Sicilian ruler and a mysterious shepherd who persuades the royal court to abandon its rigid old rules and let loose, for better and worse. It “explores a world of contrasts between reason and desire, between order and freedom, the familiar and the unknown,” Egel said. The opera’s creator, Karol Szymanowski, wrote it during the upheaval after World War I, Egel said, in “a moment not unlike our own when former structures no longer felt secure and new ways of understanding the world, one another and ourselves were urgently needed.” That sense of tension between stability and change is one reason the opera endures, even a century after its premiere in Warsaw. Although it’s rarely staged, there have been some memorable productions over the years, including a revival in Paris that leaned into the work’s hedonistic edge with nudity and drugs — “va-va-va-voom!” as Lucyna Migala put it. She leads Chicago’s Lira Ensemble, which performed a few Polish folks songs during Thursday’s concert. The soprano, Lydia Katarina, sang “Roxana’s Aria,” one of the “King Roger” showpieces, before Alexander Birch Elliott wrapped up the program with the opera’s final aria, “Słońce! Słońce!” or “Sunrise! Sunrise!” “That last scene, it’s unlike any other musical moment,” said the baritone, who will star in the title role this summer. In the meantime, he hustled back to New York to star in “La Bohème,” which opened Monday at the Met. At the end of the event, Egel presented the consulate with a framed sketch of two “King Roger” costumes and encouraged the guests to see the show this summer in Indianola. “I truly hope you’ll make the trek, just a few hundred miles to the west, to join us for this opera and two others,” he said. DMMO presents “King Roger” in rotation with “Tosca” and “Of Mice and Men,” June 26 through July 19 at the Blank Performing Arts Center at Simpson College. Above: DMMO General and Artistic Director Michael Egel presented framed sketches of opera costumes to Polish Vice Consul Bernadetta Pałka-Maciejewska. (Photo: Andrzej Baraniak) Below: Guests mingled at the Polish consulate, a former mansion on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive. (Photo: Michael Morain) ...read more read less