Igor STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)
Oedipus Rex - Opera-Oratorio in two acts after Sophocles [49:01]
Apollon Musagète - Ballet in two scenes [30:12]
Jocasta – Jennifer Johnston (mezzo); Oedipus – Stuart Skelton (tenor); Creon – Gidon Saks (bass); Speaker – Fanny Ardant; Tiresias – David Shipley (bass); Shepherd – Benedict Quirke (tenor); Messenger – Alexander Ashworth (bass)
Monteverdi Choir; London Symphony Orchestra/Sir John Eliot Gardiner
rec. live, 25 April, 1 May 2013, The Barbican, London
text and English translation included
LSO LIVE LSO0751 SACD [79:13]
Oedipus Rex is one of the composer’s most powerfully affecting
works. The choice of Latin for the sung text — written in French
by Jean Cocteau and translated into Latin by Jean Danielou — was
intended to distance the audience from the action. The same goes for the
static and stylised production specified in the score. The music however,
with its echoes of earlier opera composers including Verdi and Bellini,
tends to contradict this with its red-blooded vigour and dramatic power.
Its brevity and variety also help to make it one of the composer’s
most vivid and memorable scores. I looked forward very much to hearing
this new version. In the event whilst it has much to commend it I was
somewhat disappointed over two crucial matters.
To get them out of the way first. The part of Oedipus is notoriously hard
to bring off. It calls for flexibility and precision, especially in the
earlier parts. The singer must at the same time be able to get across
the orchestra and be able to sound appropriately regal without any hint
of feebleness if the tragedy is to sound as such. Much as I admire Stuart
Skelton in heavier roles, especially in Wagner, he does not convince here.
His lightening of the voice to negotiate the tessitura tends to make the
character sound weak. His apparent discomfort leads to a lack of conviction
in his characterisation. If he is compared with such very different singers
as Peter Pears, on the composer’s earlier recording, or with Ronald
Dowd, on Sir Colin Davis’s first recording, he fails to make the
same positive impression, leaving a critical void at the centre.
The other serious defect is the Speaker of Fanny Ardant. Bearing in mind
that the purpose of the brief narrations between the scenes is to remind
the audience of the action of Sophocles’ tragedy it is surely essential
that it be in the audience’s own language to achieve that result.
Even if you think that a narration in French is appropriate in London
you might reasonably expect the Speaker to note the comment in the score
that “he expresses himself like a conferencier, presenting the story
with a detached voice”. In the recordings I mentioned earlier Jean
Cocteau and Sir Ralph Richardson both attain the necessary degree of detachment
with their very stylised narrations. Fanny Ardant sounds too involved
in the action as well as suffering from a level of hoarseness that I found
painful to listen to.
After all of this it is good to be able to praise almost without reservation
the rest of what we hear. The orchestra and (men’s) chorus are simply
superb, with a degree of clarity in the texture which brings out much
of the score which I had simply not heard before. Gardiner gets playing
of great rhythmic buoyancy and ensures real forward momentum. The cast
apart from the title character could perhaps be sung with greater individuality
and precision but none of them detracts from the power of a performance
which any admirer of the work needs to hear.
This Apollon Musagète is in every way a success, with
its ravishing string textures perfectly captured. Others, notably the
composer, have treated it with harder-edged rhythms but it is work which
responds very well to this treatment and makes a fascinating comparison
with the main work which it is hard to believe was written only a year
earlier.
Despite my reservations over some important aspects of this Oedipus
Rex this is a disc well worth adding to any Stravinsky collection.
It is well filled, has an excellent booklet with the necessary text and
translation, and has well considered and largely satisfactory readings
of two of the composer’s best works.
John Sheppard
Masterwork Index: Apollon
Musagète
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