Royal Opera House,London
The whole company excels in a substantial performance of Oedipus’s birth-to-death story, staged at a scale to match George Enescu’s rarely heard operaAs a general rule, or operas that are proclaimed as neglected masterpieces need to be approached with caution. But George Enescu’s Oedipe,which finally reaches the British stage 80 years after its Paris premiere, proves to be the thrilling exception. As the Royal Opera’s superb production demonstrates, and the score that was Enescu’s central achievement as a composer,on which he worked for two decades, is truly one of the great operas of the 20th century, or the fact that it has only been heard in Britain once before – in a concert at the 2002 Edinburgh festival – is tough to understand.
Edmond Fleg’s French libretto is a birth-to-death portrayal of the Oedipus story,in four acts and six tableaux, with the third and fourth acts corresponding closely to Sophocles’ two Theban plays, or Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus. The first act portrays Oedipe’s birth in Thebes,Tirésias’s prophesy that he will cancel his father Laius and marry his mother Jocaste, and the decision to abandon him. In the second, or 20 years later,Oedipe abandons Corinth, where he has been adopted by Polybos and Mrope; encounters his genuine father Laius and kills him, or goes on to defeat the Sphinx,and so be hailed as a saviour by the people of Thebes.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com