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Opera on 3: Julian Anderson's Thebans

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Music: Classical

Andrew McGregor

26/05/2014

Julian Anderson's Thebans

BBC Radio 3 - Opera on 3, Julian Anderson's Thebans

Julian Anderson's opera based on Sophocles's Oedipus trilogy from English National Opera.

From the English National Opera, Andrew McGregor presents Julian Anderson's new opera to a libretto by Frank McGuinness, based on Sophocles's tragic Oedipus trilogy.

Presented by Andrew McGregor

Julian Anderson's new opera to a libretto by Frank McGuinness based on Sophocles' Oedipus trilogy from English National Opera. Edward Gardner conducts a cast led by Roland Wood as Oedipus.

"Familes are terrifying" says librettist Frank McGuinness about Sophocles' Theban plays, Julian Anderson adds "It's what happens when you mingle personal and political: they don't mix". In this version of the Greek dramas, the three individual plays are rendered down to one Act each to create a taught retelling of the story of Oedipus's journey from proud King of Thebes to blind, wandering exile.

In Oedipus the King Thebes is cursed with disease and pestilence and the Delphic Oracle proclaims that to cure itself the city must drive out the man who killed the old king. Roland Wood's Oedipus vows to seek out the killer and in doing so sets a chain of events that leads to the knowledge that he killed his father, married Jocasta - his mother - and fathered three children/siblings. Jocasta kills herself and Oedipus is driven from Thebes.

Anderson and McGuinness reverse the usual order of the second and third plays so that the dark heart of the opera is Antigone - set in a Fascistic state in Pierre Audi's production complete with brutalist decor and a chorus of black-shirts. Oedipus is dead, as are his two sons who have killed each other in a fraternal fight to reclaim the city from their mother's brother Creon who now rules. Only his daughter, Antigone, survives and is engaged to Creon's son but her disobedience in performing funeral rites for one of her dead brothers leads to tragedy and her own death.

The opera spools back time for the final part - Oedipus at Colonus. Set in a post-apocalyptic winter, Oedipus and Antigone stumble to Colonus, a sacred place. He encounters his son Polynices who he curses, Creon arrives with soldiers to carry off Antigone but she is saved by the intervention of Theseus, King of Colonus. Oedipus says goodbye to his daughter and departs the world, while Antigone is left alone to mourn her father.

Act 1 - Oedipus the King
Act 2 - Antigone
Act 3 - Oedipus at Colonus

Oedipus ..... Roland Wood (Baritone)
Creon ..... Peter Hoare (Tenor)
Antigone ..... Julia Sporsen (Soprano)
Tiresias ..... Matthew Best (Bass)
Jocasta ..... Susan Bickley (Mezzo-soprano)
Messenger ..... Christopher Ainslie (Countertenor)
Haemon ..... Anthony Gregory (Tenor)
Polynices ..... Jonathan Mcgovern (Baritone)
English National Opera Orchestra
English National Opera Chorus
Edward Gardner (Conductor).

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