Oedipus Rex

Composer : Igor Stravinsky
Librettist : Jean Cocteau
Opera Year : 1927

OEDIPUS REX

Libretto Jean Cocteau, after Sophicles

Composed at the height of Stravinsky’s neo-classical period, Œdipus Rex assimilates a wide range of styles from the baroque through to the 19th century. Several features are specifically influenced by Verdi, a new source of inspiration for Stravinsky, and of all his operas this requires the largest voices.

Stravinsky instructed that Cocteau’s original French text for the narrations should be translated into the language of the audience, but the sung parts should always remain in Latin.

Cocteau’s original production had an extremely austere staging. The singers wear masks and are instructed only to move their heads and arms: most don’t walk on and off stage but are revealed by movement of screens or curtains. Stravinsky called the piece an “opera-oratorio”, and it is just as effective in concert performance.

Although the music in each act is continuous, broken only by the narrations, it is close to being a numbers opera. The story is presented through a series of large statements very much like arias; most of the characters make only a single appearance, and there is very little ensemble singing.

The story starts after Œdipus’ coronation, tracing his downfall rather than his rise to fame. His adoption, early history and the consequences of his actions are only revealed as their significance become clear to him.

Since each narration describes the action that follows, this synopsis follows the musical thread.

ACT ONE. The first narration sets the scene of pestilence-ridden Thebes, and how Œdipus is oblivious of a trap set for him by the Gods.

The chorus beg Œdipus for salvation from the plague, first in a thrice-repeated rising dramatic gesture, then a hypnotic gentle quaver rhythm, and finally a morose 2-part contrapuntal setting. Œdipus answers that he will save the city; in a brief but extremely florid solo he refers to his love for the people and his own famous reputation. The chorus reprise their gentle plea, adding “save us once more”, referring to Œdipus’ victory over the Sphinx which won him the throne and marriage to their widowed Queen. They ask what can be done.

In a continuation of Œdipus’ florid solo he tells how the Queen’s brother Creon has been sent to consult the oracle at Delphi for guidance. The chorus end the section with a bold salutation to Creon, ending “Audimus” (“we are listening”)

(Second Narration)

Creon’s aria is a big-delivery Allegro, mostly in a grandiose Handelian C major and often against a very full orchestra with driving rhythms in the brass. There is one short passage of extremely fast semiquavers.

Creon is cast as a bass-baritone, and twice the score gives alternative vocal lines: first to avoid a series of high Es and Fs, then later to stay in the upper voice against an enormous orchestral tutti.

The unexpected edict from the oracle is that the Queen’s husband’s murderer lies in hiding in the city, and only his discovery and expulsion will purge the plague he has brought. After the climactic words “Peste infikit Thebes” (“he has brought plague upon Thebes”) Creon ends with an emphatic “Apollo the God has spoken” challenging Œdipus to a reaction.

Œdipus’ thoughtful response is an aria of confident affirmation. Only he is the one to rid Thebes of this menace, as he did the Sphinx by solving its riddles. The chorus make quiet interjections but they do not sing at the same time as Œdipus. As they rise in volume he gives his pledge to seek out the murderer. His music is generally more lightly accompanied than the other roles, with wind instruments to the fore and technically very demanding, like many Bach cantata arias.

(Third Narration - over an ominous low strings pedal note)

To the same inexorable rhythm as their opening pleas the chorus quietly pray to the Gods for help. Their sudden loud hailing welcomes Tiresias, the blind seer.

Tiresias is the only person who realises that Œdipus is a victim of the Gods’ cruelty and he tells Œdipus he cannot speak of it, warning him not to insist : it would be better for him to remain silent. Œdipus angrily interrupts the aria with a single line: “Takiturnitas t’acusat: Tu peremptor.” (“Your silence accuses you - you are the murderer”) leaving Tiresias no choice but to tell him what he knows about the death of Jocasta’s husband Laius. He began his aria with gentle and sparse music, singing with only violins and a solo bassoon, but now it builds slowly to a final large scale delivery of the oracle’s words: “Rex peremptor regis est.” (“The King’s murderer is a king”)

Again Œdipus’ reaction is thoughtful and assured. With a beautiful key-change reminiscent of Verdi’s Requiem he declares that lucky people always arouse jealousy in others, and points out that the all-seeing Teresias failed to guess the Sphinx’s riddles himself. In his most dramatic music Œdipus accuses first Creon of desiring the throne for himself and then, in an unaccompanied phrase where the pitches are left free, Tiresias of abetting him. Finally he appeals to the crowd’s sympathy, portraying his own death at Creon’s hands by fading away to nothing.

Jocasta enters, disturbed by the argument. The chorus sing a huge paean of glorification to her, and the act ends before she speaks.

ACT TWO. The score stipulates that the Gloria chorus should be repeated before the next narration - as there is rarely an interval at this point it is often repeated instead after the narrator has spoken.

(Fourth Narration)

Jocasta is the only woman in the opera, and Stravinsky sets her apart from the other roles with this huge dramatic scena, the most overtly Verdian in the opera.

First, in the manner of a recitative, she scolds the men for raising their quarrelling voices in public while the city is gripped by suffering. Gentle flutes and austere harp and piano arpeggiations accompany her like a group of sombre maidservants. The harmony is heavy with diminished 7ths: this chord was much loathed by twentieth century composers for its associations with cheap melodrama and silent movie pianists, and it is here reclaimed by Stravinsky through his discovery of and love for Verdi’s operas.

In the main part of the aria, with solemn harp and woodwinds, she continues her denouncement of shameful behaviour. Her rash claim that oracles prove nothing sends the music into a fast tempo with whirling clarinets flouncing around her outraged insistences, and punchy repetitions of the words “oracula” and “mentita sunt”.

Her husband King Laius was predicted to be killed by her own son, and instead he was killed by thieves at a meeting of three roads (“trivium”). A da capo with altered text leads to a climactic high A on her husband’s name, and the chorus join her (singing with one of the principals for the first time) quietly repeating the word ‘trivium.’

Œdipus remembers with horror that he killed an old man during a confrontation at just such a place on his way from Corinth to Thebes; he tells her this, first over pulsing B flat major chords then a furtive timpani solo.

She flies into a cabaletta-like agitato of extreme virtuosity for voice and orchestra alike, obsessively repeating “Semper oracula mentiuntur. Œdipus, cave, cave oracula” (“beware oracles, they always lie”) and he joins in, making this the only extended ensemble in the opera. He sings of his fear and she demands that they go inside. Here the boundless energy of the music pushes it almost over into a mood of manic cheerfulness, another homage to Verdi. Finally, over the pulsing B flat chords, Œdipus asks to speak to the shepherd who saw the murder of Laius. Jocasta insists he should not.

(Fifth Narration, over timpani roll)

The Shepherd and a Messenger are introduced by the chorus; they then join the latter in a grimly cheerful aria, partly unaccompanied. He has brought news of the death of Œdipus’ father King Polybus of Corinth, and further news that he himself had found the boy on a mountainside and brought him to the childless Polybus for adoption.

The chorus are excited - they imagine Œdipus descended from a god and a mountain nymph. But the Shepherd, who first berates himself for speaking out, tells the truth over a suitably rural bassoon duet: he was abandoned by his parents and left to die with his feet shackled (Polybus named him Œdipus because it means ‘swollen-footed’). Without a word, Jocasta leaves.

Œdipus is fascinated to know who his real parents are, and what led them to this action. He assumes Jocasta to have left in disgust at the possibility he is not of royal blood. The Shepherd and Messenger together repeat the story of the boy’s rescue, and proclaim fortissimo with the chorus that he is the son of Laius and Jocasta, killer of his father and husband of his mother. They exit muttering mutual recriminations for having spoken.

After a stunned silence, Œdipus quietly sums up his life: “Natus sum quo nefastum est, Concubui cui nefastum est, Kekidi quem nefastum est. Lux facta est!” (“I was born by whom I should not have been born, I wed whom I should not have wed, I killed whom I should not have killed. There is Light! ” and he leaves.

Fanfares on four trumpets punctuate the final Narration.

The Messenger announces the death of Jocasta, to a sequence of rushing scales in the strings, not dissimilar to the opera’s opening gestures. He is unable to say anything further, merely repeating this phrase three more times between which the chorus describe the grisly scene in full.

Jocasta’s serving women have barred her door and are wailing from inside - Œdipus breaks down the door and sees she has hanged herself. He loosens the cord and lets her down, and, cursing himself, takes her gold clasp and puts out his own eyes. Then he returns outside to reveal all the horror of his deeds. This is another of the passages in the opera where the mood is enigmatic - at once grimly determined and almost gleeful in its description of the violence.

The Messenger’s final statement leads to a full return of the opera’s opening, to the chorus’ words “Behold the King, showing himself as the foulest monster”, but the opera’s end shows the chorus in more forgiving mood. Over quiet timpani and low string repetitions of the hypnotic quaver rhythm, they sing: “Wretched King Œdipus, solver of riddles, you were loved, you are pitied, we weep for your eyes. We bid you farewell.”

Cast:
Œdipus - tenor
Jocasta - mezzosoprano
Creon - bass-baritone*
Tiresias - bass
The Shepherd - tenor
The Messenger - bass-baritone*
Chorus (tenors and basses)
(* may be performed by the same singer)

Andrew Sparling