Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937)
Hagith Op 25, Opera in one act (1911-1913)
Hagith: Wioletta Chodowicz (soprano)
Aged King: Ryszard Minkiewicz (tenor)
Young King: Andrzej Lampert (tenor)
The High Priest: Dariusz Machej (bass-baritone)
Physician: Łukasz Rosiak (baritone)
Warsaw Philharmonic Choir/Bartosz Michałowski
Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Michał Klauza
rec. live concert performance, September 16, 2018, Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio of Polish Radio, Warsaw, Poland
POLSKIE RADIO PRCD2231 [74]
Outside Poland, Karol Szymanowski’s music may not be as well-known as it should be, given that he was the leading 20th century Polish composer before Witold Lutoslawski, born in 1913. Szymanowski wrote three operas, but only the last, King Roger, has received numerous performances and recordings; it is undoubtedly his masterpiece. The two earlier works have suffered almost total neglect. Lottery for Husbands, or Fiancé No 69 is actually a three-act operetta, unperformed for almost a hundred years.
Hagith retells the biblical account of the last days of King David. It took Szymanowski a couple of years to finish the work, and he was never enthusiastic about the libretto. In fact, had it not been proposed to him by his patron Prince Lubomirski, he might have written his own. The text, by the Austrian Felix Dörmann (translated into Polish), caused Szymanowski significant worries, particularly relating to the ending. Apart from the Prince’s recommendation, it seems that only its brevity appealed to the composer – and maybe the biblical/historical subject matter.
Richard Strauss’s one-act operas Salome and Elektra were all the rage at the time, and Szymanowski was very much under Strauss’s spell, at least when he started on Hagith. In 1913, he saw the Ballets Russes perform Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, met Stravinsky’s Petroushka, and saw Franz Schreker’s Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin. These encounters added to his growing dissatisfaction with his “Straussomania”, but Hagith may have been too near completion for any wholesale revision of style. Those familiar with his First and Second Symphonies – which revel in Wagnerian and Straussian overload, not to mention Scriabinisms – will know what to expect. The sheer torrent of sound can sometimes seem overwhelming in its dense complexity.
The setting is the bedroom of the dying Old King. His physician has recommended that the King’s demand for warmth to ease his cold limbs be provided by a beautiful virgin. She would envelop him in her arms and transfer her heat to him by magical means. He would regain youthful vigour, whilst she would waste and die. The Old King agrees but is highly suspicious of his son, the Young King, who he believes is planning to take over the rule of the country. Outside the palace, the crowd can be heard acclaiming the Young King, and the Old King is furious. The Young King appears and tries to convince his father that he did not want such demonstrations, and that the High Priest incited the crowd. In vain he asks his father to believe him; he is banished to the barren caves in the mountains.
The Young King is about to leave and the Old King moves to the balcony when the eponymous young maiden Hagith enters. She sees the Young King and they fall in love. He is smitten by her beauty; she has seen and admired him for some time. There is a powerful love duet, whilst the Old King faces the crowd from the balcony. He is delighted that his appearance has prompted a declaration of allegiance. He returns to the bedroom. The Young King, forced to leave, attempts to get Hagith to accompany him, but the High Priest insists that Hagith stay. The Young King leaves and the High Priest tries to assure the Old King that his intention was for the Young King to grow in power and experience, ruling alongside his father. So, Hagith must carry out her duty to rejuvenate the Old King.
In the next lengthy scene, the Old King tries to persuade Hagith to warm him, whilst she asks him not to use her body and drain her life. She does this firstly by trying to convince him to live with his son, and when this fails, by a mixture of accusation and insult. This infuriates the King very much. He declares that he does not need her, and that he is young and powerful again. The strain is too much: he drops dead. The High Priest rushes in and castigates Hagith for not “warming” the Old King, and orders her to be taken away and stoned to death. She is led away to execution. The Young King enters and is upset by his father’s death, but soon asks for Hagith. Too late, she has been executed and he falls to the ground sobbing.
As is the case for many operas, the libretto leaves something to be desired. In particular, Hagith is given an impossible choice: death by stoning or death by magical draining of her life force. Too little time passes between her being taken away to be stoned and the Young King arriving on the scene, apparently incapable of saving her. Compared with the libretti for Salome and Elektra, this one is quite feeble in character development and dramatic effect.
The live recording is free of audience noise until the applause at the end. In order to mask any noise, the engineers seem to have used quite a close balance for the voices. This does not diminish the orchestral impact. Indeed, the highly atmospheric opening – where the sultry, enclosed gloom of the bedroom is superbly conveyed by the orchestra alone – shows the band to be very well recorded. During the love duet, however, the voices can sound rather overwhelming. Nonetheless, the soloists are of high quality. There is no weak link, although I occasionally wished that Wioletta Chodowicz had a lighter voice, more fitting her role as a young girl. On the other hand, no lighter voice would have been able to cope with the strenuous demands of the love duet, where even Chodowicz’s voice is occasionally eclipsed by that of Andrzej Lampert. The excellent tenor voices of the Old King and Young King are well differentiated when they sing together, and the minor roles of The Physician and the High Priest are very well taken. The orchestra really comes into its own at the very end, when the Young King’s sorrow at Hagith’s offstage death is accompanied by huge torrents of sound. Conductor Michał Klauza clearly has the orchestra respond splendidly to his vigorous direction.
For anyone interested in the composer’s life and musical development, I can thoroughly recommend Alistair Wightman’s very readable, detailed biography Karol Szymanowski: His Life and Work, Ashgate, 1999. I was interested to read Wightman’s reference to Szymanowski’s written suggestion during the composition, “I suppose I could pretend to be Puccini”, and subsequent critical comment that the love duet had incongruous echoes of Puccini (Jim Samson, The Music of Szymanowski, London: Kahn and Averill, 1980, p. 73). Well, perhaps my knowledge of Puccini’s music is limited, but I can detect little if anything of his melodic style, either in the love duet or anywhere else.
The overall presentation of this recording is absolutely first-rate. A plush booklet contains a synopsis, a discussion of the genesis of the opera, a full libretto in Polish, English and German, and accompanying photos and biographies of the performers. I am delighted to welcome this first CD release of Szymanowski’s early opera. To the best of my knowledge, the DVD recording on DUX a decade ago has not been released on CD.
Jim Westhead
