Opéra de Paris’ Oedipe review – finally, a worthy restoration of Enescu’s masterpiece
The production of Romanian composer, George Enescu’s only opera, Oedipe, presented by the Opéra National de Paris, which debuted on 14 October, restores a neglected masterpiece to the repertoire. Oedipe was first performed in 1936 and has rarely been performed in fully staged form since.
The Enescu Festival, held annually in Bucharest, has mounted occasional performances in concert style, latterly illustrated with cut out background characters. Still, no other house has taken on the challenge of the Wagnerian style treatment the ancient Greek myth demands. Opéra National has gone overboard on this production.
The Oedipus story – at least the shorthand Sophocles version – has attracted other composers. Oedipus Rex, an opera oratorio by Igor Stravinsky in 1927; Greek by Mark Anthony Turnage, the English enfant terrible composer, in 1980. He created an enfant monstreux. Oedipus, transmogrified into Eddy, the father-killing, mother-loving self-blinding legend – “Eddy-pus”, Geddit? – in a London East Enders setting. Lob in a Queen Sharon sort of Cockney Sphinx and much kitchen-sink drama.
The sound of squealing as Turnage attempted to shoe-horn ancient Greek myth into the poorly fitting shoe of contemporary social commentary on Thatcher’s Britain could be heard in opera houses across the land.
In contrast, Enescu and Opéra National give audiences the pure, complete Greek tragedy of Oedipus, the man who should never have been born, in a more comprehensive form than even the Sophocles story. There are no smart-ass distractions, and the back story illuminates the depths of all the characters and explains their mental turmoil.
Sophocles focused on the tale only from the murder of King Laïos, Oedipus’ father, onwards. Enescu takes us back to the beginning. The curse of Apollo on Laïos for raping a child while out hunting. If opera is ever meant to shock, this scene did. Stomachs turned.
The curse forbids Laïos from having children. His bloodline must end with him as punishment for the violation. If he fathers a son, the son will kill him and marry his own mother, Jocasta. Laïos ignores the curse and when Oedipus is born, orders his murder.
The murder is botched, and the infant is brought up in fostered obscurity. Oedipus kills his father in a confrontation at a symbolic crossroads – a fork in his life – as he journeys back to Thebes, which he saves from the Sphinx. The rest, as they say, is Oedipus legend, and well known.
Enescu became fixated with the Greek legend after attending a play at the Comédie Française in 1909 and began the score before even selecting a librettist. The opera took a full ten years to complete, and the composer lived with it during a large part of his active musical career. Evolving stylistic changes enrich the score.
He had the good fortune to partner with Edmond Fleg, a French novelist, whose focus on writing about Jewish identity made him a savvy choice to write the libretto for the ultimate outsider, Oedipus, the man who should never have been.
Opéra de Paris has thoughtfully provided the full libretto on their website, and it is a literary pearl. It is not often that a libretto can be a bearable, stand-alone read. Try reading a Mozart/Da Ponte classic, with its endless repetitions.
The challenge for director Wajdi Mouawad was how to capitalise on this fortuitous alignment of talents. Mouawad, a Canadian/Lebanese writer, has made a point of taking on stories of conflicting personalities.
Incendies, an early play, focuses on family betrayal. Littoral, his first film, is based on a son’s relationship with his dead father. Veering toward Oedipus.
I’m not sure what his Willy Protagoras locked in the toilet in 2004 was about. Frankly, I’m not minded to inquire. Everyone is entitled to one mistake. He pitched the direction perfectly, allowing each of the characters to develop their stories and giving British baritone, Christopher Maltman, the scope to play his Oedipe as a baffled, conflicted, moral and tragic figure.
Surely this must be the most shining three hours of Maltman’s glittering career? This is a mammoth role, and he is onstage pretty much throughout and delivered a magnificently compelling performance.
The pivotal scene in the work is the confrontation with the Sphinx. Set designer Emmanuel Clolus surpassed himself. The Sphinx, sung by Clémentine Margaine, an impressive French mezzo with a burgeoning international career, including Carmen at London’s Royal Opera, emerged from her circular, tunnel-like black cave swathed in shimmering black. Her costume merged with the darkness of her lair. The long, black, reflecting fronds of her costume swirled threateningly.
Clolus focused on the simple contrast of her white, bald head with the intense darkness of her dress and the framing scenery. At that moment, the blend of Enescu’s music, Fleg’s libretto, the setting conjured up by Clolus, spare direction from Mouawad and the voices of Maltman and Margaine truly transported the audience to ancient Greece. Magical. Opera pressing every sensory button.
Alright, there is a weird bit. At first, I thought I might have tuned into a re-run of Wurzel Gummidge by mistake. The shepherd had straw sticking out of his head, and the raped child looked like a member of a vegetarian Tufty Club, with sticky-up green hair.
Everyone else had raided the veg aisle at Intermarché to augment their outfits. ESG production values. Perhaps Wajdi Mouawad is sponsored by Vegans-R-Us. There is no explanation offered for the theme, and I assume this is down to political correctness.
A jovial Ingo Metzmacher held the band in time. He directs the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen in Hanover. Metzmacher is much respected, asked by Schoenberg to conduct the premiere of his 9th Symphony in 1997. He threw himself and the Paris orchestra into Enescu’s music with vigour.
Pablo Casals, the legendary Spanish cellist, once described Enescu, in the depth and range of his gifts, as “the greatest musical phenomenon since Mozart”. He was a composer-virtuoso – violin – with a fascinating and unfairly overlooked career.
He is best known for his Romanian Rhapsodies but was far more than a simple repetiteur of folk themes he picked up from his native countryside. That said, folk idioms salt most of his oeuvre.
Enescu brings to his scores incredible textural and colouristic invention, a style ideally suited to the complex narrative and turbulent emotions Oedipe brings centre stage. He is a rarity and a musical prophet now honoured in his own country.
The annual Enescu Festival held in Bucharest claims to be the “largest classical musical festival in the world”. Take that with a bucket of salt perhaps, but the event is nonetheless impressive.
Fourteen locally based and international orchestras fly in for a programme of concerts lasting over a month; focused on Enescu, but not exclusively.
Enescu has the distinction of having been banned by the crusty, megalomaniac dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. When his palace walls crumbled in 1989, Enescu’s reputation was revived. Consistent efforts by the festival organisers to broaden the international reputation of their country’s musical genius are bearing fruit.
Now, the Enescu discography is supplemented by this Opéra National milestone production, a fitting testament to the Romanian composer’s talents. To secure co-production rights, any opera house with an ounce of sense should be beating on Opéra National de Paris’ Second Empire Palais Garnier doors.
Thanks to this remarkable revival, Oedipe and Enescu, at last, can command the global audience both deserve.