21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The greatest opera of this century, October 3, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Enesco - Oedipe / van Dam · Hendricks · Lipovsek · Bacquier · Gedda · Courtis · Hauptmann · Quilico · Aler · Vanaud · Albert · Taillon · Foster (Audio CD)
This is Enescu's masterpiece at which, according to his student the late great Yehudi Menuhin, he worked constantly for something like twenty years. While this opera is not frequently performed here in the U.S. it is worth looking for it on CD, as it is recognized by many to be a supreme musical creation. I know of only one other recording of this opera aside from this one-- it was recorded in the 1960s, it is performed by the Enescu Philarmonica and the Romanian National Opera, and while the musicians seem extremely capable, the sound lets them down. Both these recordings are hard to find but the one conducted by Foster is impeccable both in its music and its sound. I am an avid listener of classical music and have heard no deeper, more inspiring music than Enescu's Oedipe. I also highly recommend his Symphonies No.2 and No.3 and his Orchestral Suite No.1.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Yes, it's true: The greatest opera of the 20th century, April 7, 2004
This review is from: Enesco - Oedipe / van Dam · Hendricks · Lipovsek · Bacquier · Gedda · Courtis · Hauptmann · Quilico · Aler · Vanaud · Albert · Taillon · Foster (Audio CD)
I never write reviews. Mostly because of my conviction that experiencing music is an intimate and solitary enterprise. And a highly subjective one.
After Oedipe though, this philosophy MUST be suspended. It is, indeed, the most miraculous piece of work I've ever listened. It's been only four or five months since I listened to it for the first time. Ever since, I keep wondering what exactly are the obscure mechanisms that make it ignored by more or less everybody. I think NOTHING can justify this situation. A rather clumsy libretto apart, it is a flawless and fascinating masterpiece, and not even an obscure one. It would probably take a deaf person or a real snob to ignore its blatant musical beauty and originality.
Such situation made me wonder what else I've been ignoring while restricting my interests to the rather established repertoire.
I must ignore the ignominious review beneath, which praises van Dam, disgracing the music.
The performance is wonderful, flawless, orchestra and singers. Van Dam gives here one of his best performances (if not really the greatest). Fassbaender and Lipovsek are in amazingly good vocal shape, rendering hipnotizing effects.
In the meantime, I also acquired the 1964 recording (in Romanian, with Ohanesian), which made me praise the EMI effort even further. Foster version is much more intense and idiomatic (which is weird, i agree).
Try it yourself, that's the only way you'll understand my fascination for this incredible masterpiece.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wrongfully Neglected Masterpiece, March 30, 2005
This review is from: Enesco - Oedipe / van Dam · Hendricks · Lipovsek · Bacquier · Gedda · Courtis · Hauptmann · Quilico · Aler · Vanaud · Albert · Taillon · Foster (Audio CD)
I remember a few years ago when the EMI recording with a dazzling cast consisting of Jose van Dam, Gabriel Bacquier, Nicolai Gedda, Gino Quilico, John Aler, Brigitte Fassbaender, Marjana Liposvek & Barbara Hendricks - reading some rather unfavorable reviews of it. I purchased it anyway, and was knocked into tomorrow. What an incredible score this
is! Such a powerful musical drama.
The opening scene for the various choruses, the women of Thebes, the High Priest, the Theban warriors, and the shepherds, is wonderful. Alternating between exotic sounding harps & reeds, to an almost Debussyian/Ravel type of orchestral tonal pallete, and Enesco's handling of text is simply gorgeous, giving all of the characters beautiful (if brief) melodies on which to sing them. Much of the chorus work, like much of the entire opera itself is quiet, ethereal in nature with sudden bursts of enormous sound which just surround you and are all the more effective.
Enesco's musical language throughout Oedipe is wildly chromatic, and modal. Parts of the opera sound ancient and even mysteriously "Greek" in nature, while others recall
Schoenberg's Gurrelieder.
Dramatically, I love this work as well, as Enesco's librettist Edmond Fleg, incorporates more of the legend of Oedipus into this story than we usually get, as well as altering much of it. (For instance, the entire final scene)
The first act is serves as prologue, dealing, as it does, with the celebration of the birth of Oedipe, and ending with the horrible prediction of Tirisea, about the future king's fate.
Also, the final Act, serves as epilogue, since Jocasta hangs herself and Oedipe blinds himself in Act III. Here, the blind, exiled Oedipe, wandering with the aid of his daughter, Antigone, reaches a grove of flowers which she describes to him and which he knows is the end of his journey - but not before a battle of wits with Creon. Following this, Oedipe leaves them all as he walks into the grove, and near a cave, dies and dissapears in a blaze of light as the Eumenides invisbly sing "Happy
is he who is pure in soul; peace be unto him!"
Oedipe's final "aria" is, in my opinion, the closest thing in the
operatic literature to the baritone equivalent of one of those glorious Straussian scenes for soprano. Here, Enesco dishes out some of the most gorgeous music in a score that is absolutely filled with beauty. (If you listen closely, too, you'll hear that French "floating" string writing nearly identical to that used by Durufle in his Requiem some years later). Jose van Dam's singing of this scene is of such aching beauty that I get a genuine lump in my throat - til the tears start flowing
from the sheer beauty of it.
Will somebody do this opera? Til they do, this is the recording to own and experience.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
