McDonnell - Kraina: Songs of the Polish Diaspora

Anselm McDonnell - Kraina: Songs of the Polish Diaspora

Frédéric Chopin - Polish Songs

Jonathan Nangle - Snáth

Anselm McDonnell - Kraina

Karol Szymanowski - Songs of a fairytale princess

Rebecca Murphy, Cathal Masterson

Harty Room, Queen's University Belfast - 27th March 2026

The experience of the immigrant and the asylum seeker is one that we are all acutely aware of in the present day and the question of how to deal with further global upheavals caused by war, climate change, growing economic inequalities, rampant capitalism and depletion of the earth's resources is becoming more pressing every day. Everyone thinks they understand the implications and the challenges it presents, but for those who have to experience displacement on a personal and individual level, it can be harder to explain how much of an impact this has on their lives. Anselm McDonnell's song cycle Kraina - inspired by an idea by soprano Rebecca Murphy to consider the circumstances of the large Polish immigrant population in Northern Ireland - considers it in terms of a wider question of identity: how it ties to a notion of home and the impact that the loss of such a fundamental need can have in a broader, more universal context.

Presented as part of the Imagine! Festival of Ideas & Politics in Belfast, the programme built around Kraina extends that idea by bringing in other similar songs that deal with the same subject and further enrich it, showing that the idea of home, land, borders, emigration and displacement really is an experience that has been shared not only by many Polish immigrants - it is no recent EU "freedom of movement" issue - but it has also been an experience for the diaspora of many Irish people over a period of many decades and centuries. The programme therefore draws on songs by Chopin and takes us through to Szymanowski, with some new Irish language songs by Jonathan Nangle and the shared Polish-Northern Ireland experience of Anselm McDonnell's Kraina at the heart of the programme. 

Language is key to expressing the diverse issues and sentiments experienced, so the idea of it being presented in song as well as music is fundamental, as well as itself presenting something of a hinterland or border where the words and music come together. Appropriately, the selection of songs in the programme are sung in Polish, Irish and English, but music itself is an abstract form of language that uses unconventional methods of communication to put its message across, which can make it challenging to put ideas and purposes across for those unfamiliar with the language, so to speak. As well as a diversity of spoken languages, superbly enunciated and enacted by Rebecca Murphy with Cathal Masterson accompanying on the piano, the performers also had just as wide a musical language to get across.

Although not a stated aim of the programming, the side-by-side selections of Chopin, Nangel, McDonnell and Szymanowski instigated a cumulative process that not only developed the theme over the years and across musical borders, but was testament to the richness of the idea of diversity, giving the audience some unfamiliar spoken and musical languages to grapple with and consider. Alongside the beauty of the songs in their own right - despite the challenges of the spoken and musical languages (we at least had printed translations of the words) - the performance of the Rebecca Murphy with Cathal Masterson was utterly beguiling, truly inviting you to engage in the experience, bringing a genuine operatic quality to the evening in terms of breadth of the subject, personal interpretation and overall impact.

Three of Chopin's 'Polish Songs' set the scene, Smutna rzeka (Sad River), Precz z moich oczu (Out of my Sight) and Wojak (The Warrior), surely the most welcoming of introductions to the theme, each enchanting in their own way, even if the very opening words of Smutna rzeka hint at troubles ahead. ('O river from the country of strangers/Why is your course so cloudy?'). Jonathan Nangle's three songs Snáth followed and brought about a subtle change in the mood. Like Anselm McDonnell, Jonathan Nangle is a contemporary Irish composer perhaps better known for more modern electro-acoustic and video multimedia work, but the three songs composed for Snáth (Yarn) were composed in the classic lieder style part of an initiative to set Irish language texts/poems to music. They very much head into darker places - literally in the opening lines of An Croí (The Heart) which translate as "everblack blackest black then down", Snáth evoking Ariadne with a ball of yarn to "guide you through the labyrinth, tunnels of all your dark places", Chugat (Towards You) warning "don't wait for me too long". They are all beautiful concentrated little pieces where the intensity of the sentiments was vividly expressed in the precise piano accompaniment of Cathal Masterson and impressive range of Rebecca Murphy's sweet lyrical soprano.

Anselm McDonnell's Kraina song cycle consists of four pieces, which are indeed - as Rebecca Murphy described in her introduction - each like a mini-opera in their own right. They were certainly delivered that way with a beautiful expressivity where the soprano absorbed the sentiments evoked in the magical hinterland between the words and the music and 'translated' them to the audience in a performance that scarcely needed a glance at the translations to understand what was being said. That was not necessary of course for Kraina II - The House on the Interface from 'Belfast. 99 ścian pokoju' by Aleksandra Łojek as the lyrics for this song were translated for the piece by the author herself. The song directly confronts the reality of moving into a troubled area of Belfast divided by a 'peace wall', but in a way, Łojek's experience (I think she said that in the post-performance discussion that she has moved home 37 times!) reflects the dilemma expressed in the beautiful Kraina I - Jeżeli porcelana ("didn’t anyone tell you that you’ll never in the world feel at home here?"), McDonnell's treated piano arrangement providing a jagged evocation of the poem's imagery of shattered porcelain ground under the tracks of a tank. 

There is room for a little optimism in Kraina III - Kraina, but the prospect of new pleasures to be found in a new place are tempered by feelings of nostalgia for the deeper roots of the homeland ("Why does my heart forever still bewail/Far-distant lands, more distant days of old?"). It's telling that the text of this piece from 'Pielgrzym' by Adam Mickiewicz was written in 1826, showing that the experiences of the Polish diaspora stretch back centuries and face many of the same challenges today. Not least questions of language and communication as the setting of Peter Skrzynecki 1978 text for Kraina IV - The Polish Immigrant where "tooth-grinding consonants that must be phonetically rehearsed". Rounding out the programme, the choice of three of Szymanowski's 'Songs of a fairytale princess' was just perfect, from the perspective of choosing a significant 20th century Polish composer to contrast with the opening Chopin pieces, for the remarkable variety that it brought to the programme, but also for how it seemed to long for that magical place of escape to an ideal world.

External links: Imagine! Belfast

Szymanowski - Król Roger (Royal Opera House, 2015 - Blu-ray)

Karol Szymanowski - Król Roger

Royal Opera House, London - 2015

Antonio Pappano, Kasper Holten, Mariusz Kwiecien, Saimir Pirgu, Georgia Jarman, Kim Begley, Alan Ewing, Agnes Zwierko

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

Szymanowski's Król Roger is a rare enough work, but not so rare that you wouldn't have come across it before and even had an opportunity to see it performed thanks to a fine Blu-ray release of the 2009 production at Bregenz. That particular production, while it looked marvellous and highlighted that this was a work that merited more attention, was a fairly arid stage production that made little effort to explore the subtext and context of the work. Kasper Holten takes a bit more of a chance in the work's first production at the Royal Opera House, opening up the themes of a little known work and making it explicit through this release to a worldwide audience. The real risk however is perhaps revealing that there's not much more great depth to the work than is apparent just beneath the surface.

Based on 'The Bacchae' by Euripides, and set in the Byzantine era of the 12th century ruler of Palermo, Szymanowski's Król Roger is a fairly basic morality tale. It explores the consequences of a Christian king whose moral certainties and security of his authority is challenged by the arrival of a new prophet. This takes in a familiar opera subject, beloved of Baroque opera seria, of the need of a ruler to show caution in balancing the exercise of power against the satisfaction of their own personal needs. Like many European artists, writers and filmmakers who have been drawn over the years by the allure of an exotic paradise and a closer connection to nature that permits a more open sexual liberation, Szymanowski had a passion for the hedonism and cultural diversity of the Mediterranean, and issues relating to the composer's homosexuality are also very much a part of what the opera is about.

Listening to the reports of the Shepherd-Prophet's activities, King Roger initially regards his seductive promise that true happiness can only be found in indulging the senses as pagan blasphemy. Troubled and jealous of the influence the Shepherd has over Queen Roxana, he orders the dangerous madman be put to death, but relents when the Queen appeals for clemency and instead banishes him. Roger is however perturbed by the words of the Shepherd. When did he ever last feel passion such as that described by the prophet? He might be a king, but in contrast to the limitless pleasures promised by the prophet, he has to admit to himself that his reach doesn't extend beyond his own arm, or more pointedly, beyond a sword at the end of his arm. There's a persuasive argument here that troubles the King, so he invites the Prophet to another private meeting.

The conflict between the head and the heart can't be missed in the most distinguishing characteristic of Kasper Holten's direction and Steffen Aarfing's set design, with its huge head dominating as the eye-catching centre-piece. It's a feature that was also evident in Holten's Don Giovanni for the Royal Opera House, the psychology of the noble made visible and compartmentally spread in 3D projections across the various levels and rooms of a mansion construction. Unlike Don Giovanni, the simplicity and abstraction of his idea works more effectively in Król Roger. The huge choral opening of the work calls out for a big gesture, and the monumental imagery here could hardly be more effective in achieving the necessary impact.


Like Don Giovanni's house of the mind, Król Roger's head revolves 360˚ in the second act to show the conflict that is going on within it, on a literal as well as an internal level. The head is split into several levels, showing the living quarters of the King and the Queen. At a lower level a mass of semi-naked bodies can be seen twisting and writhing while the king grapples with the doubts that the words of the Shepherd have awakened in him. It's debatable whether Holten's production, set moreover in the 1920s, does anything more than make the subtext of the composer's homosexuality a little more obvious, but on the evidence of the beautiful performance of the work at the Royal Opera house, there is clearly a musical richness to the work and wider themes explored that suggest that Szymanowski's Król Roger is worthy of more attention.

The large choral pieces are the most striking and original element of Król Roger, which is perhaps why the influence of Strauss's Salome - one of the most important works from this period - seems to go largely unnoticed. It seems to me to be the obvious comparison, with its prophet, its awakening of forbidden lusts that challenge traditional Christian morality, and the fear of the consequences that might ensue. It's evident right down to the sensual language of the libretto, and mirrored in the music as well. Salome is very evident in the soaring orchestration, the heady, seductive Oriental melodies and rhythms that are even presented in the form of a dance in Act II, but also in the dramatic punctuation of the music, its notes of dissonance and its roaring crescendos.

All of this is indeed seductive to the listener, as much as it is to the king. What is interesting about Król Roger, and what suggests that there is potentially more to say about the work than Kasper Holten suggests, is the rather more ambiguous ending. There is a danger in letting oneself submit to wild abandon of earthly delights, Roger risking losing his power and influence, becoming reduced to a pilgrim or a beggar. Salome pays the price to pay for stepping outside those boundaries, but after his own experience at transgressing social and sexual mores, Oscar Wilde would later revise this view in 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' to the opinion that each man might indeed kill the thing he loves "yet each man does not die". Szymanowski's Król Roger - and to be fair Holten's production supports this - seems to go along with this, Roger appearing to be reborn through acknowledgement and acceptance of those desires, if not quite in submission to them.

If there's a seductiveness to this view proposed by the Shepherd that Roger is unable to resist, a lot of it is to do with Szymanowski's score, the vivid reading of it by Antonio Pappano, and the outstanding singing performances. The complementary contrasts between Mariusz Kwiecien's Roger and Saimir Pirgu's Shepherd in particular really contribute to the essential dynamic. Singing in his native Polish Kwiecien is impressive - commanding and authoritative turning to tortured and liberated, his voice reflecting all the passion that is contained within that journey. Saimir Pirgu seductive lyric tenor is simply perfect casting for the Prophet, and Georgia Jarman's Roxana is wonderfully persuasive in her effusive declarations.

The complementary material on the BD release gives some good background information on this rare work. The director, conductor and case contribute to a five-minute introduction that explores the work, its musical language and its characters in sufficient depth, and there is also a more detailed look at the sets and the music.  In addition to this, there's a full-length commentary from Kasper Holten and an essay in the enclosed booklet by John Lloyd Davies that explores the Nietzschean undercurrents in the subject, as well its parallels with Hamlet, von Aschenbach and Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera. The quality of the recording is good, the opera benefiting particularly from the wide dynamic of the High Definition sound. The BD is region-free with subtitles in English, French, German, Japanese and Korean.

Links: The Royal Opera House