King Roger

Chicago Opera Theater

Chicago, IL

“Conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya enjoyed one of her most effective outings at COT to date with a multi-layered, propulsive account of the score that spun out a kaleidoscope of orchestral color. The wealth of dynamics employed in the Act II entr’acte was singularly beautiful. Stage to pit balance was impeccable. This King Roger was a special evening of too-rarely heard music, and easily emerged as one of Chicago’s 2022 musical highlights.”
–Opera News

“King Roger is richly mysterious, and under Lidiya Yankovskaya’s baton, Chicago Opera Theater makes a persuasive argument for the piece’s place in the literature.”
–Chicagoland Music Theater

“What sets Szymanowski apart from others is his immense skill with coloristic effects and outstanding flair for creating exotic, otherworldly music. It is here that Chicago Opera Theater’s production really soared. The sound from the pit was enrapturing. COT music director Lidiya Yankovskaya presided over the orchestra with authority, carefully drawing out the vast detail and intricate rhythmic elements of this intellectual drama, where the composer’s nuanced treatment of each emotional journey is complete with both jangles and joy. The 70-member orchestra created powerful and evocative sound that made the evening memorable.”
–Hyde Park Herald

“The Polish composer’s only full-length opera (1924) contains much ravishingly beautiful music that the conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya shaped and paced unerringly, drawing sumptuous playing from her enlarged, hard-working orchestra while fusing the score’s disparate stylistic elements into an iridescent whole.”
–Opera Magazine

 “Lidiya Yankovskaya has conducted dozens of world premieres and is a sought-after conductor of avant-garde productions and new stagings of operas [such as] the richly layered music and story of King Roger.”
–Third Coast Review