Gripping take on ‘Oedipus’ a triumph
By Keith Powers
Friday, May 5, 2006 - Updated: 02:43 AM EST
James Levine, with his brilliant and edgy programming, juxtaposing Schoenberg and Beethoven over a series of concerts covering this season and next, is trying to bring Boston Symphony Orchestra audiences kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
Last night at Symphony Hall, guest conductor Christoph von Dohnanyi, programming Mozart and Stravinsky, may have done as much for that cause in one evening.
Mozart wrote his last three symphonies in a flush of creative activity just before he died. Amazingly, they are all different, and the last, nicknamed “Jupiter,” combines the weight of late Beethoven, the songlike quality of mature Schubert and the impressive intellect of Brahms. Dohnanyi’s conducting was precise and erudite. The orchestra sounded like it actually liked playing for the guy.
After intermission was a rare performance of Stravinsky’s “Oedipus Rex,” haltingly called an “opera-oratorio.” Stravinsky - aided and abetted by his dance colleague Diaghilev - created a brilliant synopsis of Sophocles’ great tragedy, although he probably wasn’t happy with the result.
Stravinsky always had a love-hate relationship with opera, preferring ballet as the truly modern form. And the complicated genesis of “Oedipus Rex” - an oratorio in Latin, written by a Frenchman, Jean Cocteau, from an ancient Greek text - adds to the complexity, and to the pleasure.
The story of Oedipus is well-known, of course. All foretold from the first, a son unwittingly kills his father, then unknowingly marries his mother. It all unravels in a psychodrama of the utmost proportions.
Stuart Skelton (tenor) sang brilliantly as the pathetic hero, and Anna Larsson (mezzo) dominated the stage during her short stint as mother/lover Jocasta. As a story, Stravinsky (with help from Cocteau) cleverly compacted the action into one headlong rush to ruin. The all-male chorus sang terrifically.
Narrator Philip Bosco kept the audience gripped with the unfolding devolvement (although one had to wonder why his text differed so drastically from the program notes). In the end, a triumph for Dohnanyi and the BSO.
Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi at Symphony Hall, last night; runs through tomorrow.
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