King Roger was staged for the first time at the Grand Opera in Warsaw on June 19, 1926, with the company's director, Emil Młynarski, conducting.
The production was directed by Adolf Popławski. The cast included Eugeniusz Mossakowski as Roger, Adam Dobosz as the Shepherd and Stanisława Szymanowska, the composer's sister, as Roxana.
King Roger is the fruit of Szymanowski's fascination with Oriental culture. The opera is set in the 12th-century Norman Kingdom of Sicily during the reign of King Roger II.
The story begins with the arrival at his court of a mysterious stranger preaching a pagan creed of beauty and pleasure.
The opera is often described as a philosophical and religious tale of sacrifice and faith. It centres on a conflict between different religions and visions of life.
Rarely performed for many decades, King Roger has steadily grown in popularity since the 1980s, with productions staged across Europe, Australia and the Americas.
In the late 1990s, Sir Simon Rattle conducted a concert performance of the opera at the BBC Proms in London and later recorded the work.
In 2015, King Roger was staged by the Royal Opera House in London, with Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecień in the title role.
Director Kasper Holten wrote in a programme note for the production: "King Roger is one of the works that we feel deserves to be heard and seen more. It has been an amazing journey to work on this piece with its lush, overwhelming score, mix of musical language and strongly personal, yet poetic and ambiguous, libretto."
He added: "King Roger was clearly a work that meant everything to Szymanowski, who poured his soul into it. And is that not exactly what we look for in a work of art?"
Born in 1882 in Tymoszówka, now in Ukraine, Szymanowski was one of the most prominent composers of the 20th century.
Influenced by many styles and traditions, he is widely credited with bringing Polish music of the first half of the 20th century into the mainstream of European musical trends.
After initially studying music at home, he moved to Warsaw, where he took private lessons in harmony and composition before becoming a student of composer and teacher Zygmunt Noskowski at the Warsaw Music Institute.
He travelled extensively throughout southern Europe, North Africa and the United States.
Back in newly independent Poland, his music developed a stronger sense of national identity, reflected in the ballet Harnasie and the sacred music masterpiece Stabat Mater.
Harnasie is the finest example of his fascination with the music of Polish highlanders, which he explored during frequent visits to Poland's southern Tatra mountains.
His highly diverse output includes a wide range of piano works, two violin concertos and four symphonies.
Szymanowski died in a sanatorium in Lausanne, Switzerland, in March 1937.
(mk/gs)