Customer Reviews

Enesco - Oedipe / van Dam · Hendricks · Lipovsek · Bacquier · Gedda · Courtis · Hauptmann · Quilico · Aler · Vanaud · Albert · Taillon · Foster

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This opera is truly one of the greatest operatic masterpieces of the twentieth century. Sadly underperformed, Oedipe at least has a champion in this superb recording from EMI. A cast of great singers and a brilliant orchestra and chorus reveal every raw emotion that the work expresses, from melancholy foreboding and bitter anguish to triumphant joy and serene repose.

I echo the previous reviewers in praising this recording to the skies. What great intensity! What great singing! Enescu's work is not in the repertory mainly, I think, because it lacks easily assimilated, memorable tunes, but it is intensely dramatic, and the orchestration just must be heard. The EMI recording is first-class, and it is a shame they have not kept it in the domestic US catalogue. Easiest way to get it: click over to amazon.co.uk and order it from England. I did this and had it in my hands within a week.

How can it be that this great work is essentially unknown, even in the world of opera itself?

An unqualified masterpiece that manages to incorporate the essence of the great George Enescu---not only his incredible musical craft and imagination---but the profoundly mystical language of the Rumanian culture, with its unique mix of mid-eastern, Roman and Byzantine influences; and, oh yes, the opera is very FRENCH too, since Enescu spent
much of his career in Paris studying (with Faure), performing and teaching. Incidentally, he was also a great conductor, being a candidate for the NY Phil after Toscanini left AND one of the 20th-century's greatest violin virtuosos.

So why isn't Oedipe honored as one of the 20th-century's greatetst operas? So many reasons, I suppose....all of them unjust, invalid, and regrettable. If the work has ANY chance of ever receiving the recognition it deserves, it will be thanks to this wonderful All-Star recording by Lawrence Foster---thank the Lord for his belief in Oedipe (not to mention his brilliant talent for bringing it to life on the podium!)

Too many incredible things to mention---but here's a few:

The opera is meticulously crafted using about 20 main motifs--many of which are heard in the dark, nightmarish Prelude. The overall PACING and structure of the score is FABULOUS---this is probably the area in which most Opera composers FAIL---yet Enescu's one and only stage work is practically flawless in this respect.

Act 1 contains much music evocative of Grecian antiquity---a culture closely related to that of Rumania. So much of this colorful music seems to "glow" with a feeling of serenity and warmth that pervades the score. Great mid-eastern "dancing girl" music, a MUST for exotic operas (actually it's a Shepherd's Dance); Very appealing in its combo of Rumanian and French sound. Lovely, ecstatic choral passages. If only that darn' soothsayer Tiresias didn't have to spoil the fun.

Act 2 Has more beauteous "antique" court music, as well as the suffocatingly menacing scene of the wandering Oedipus' murder of his father Laius (which takes place EXTREMELY quickly, unlike most operatic death scenes)during a thunderstorm (with the Shepherd's Rumanian "doina" inspired flute solos adding more tension to the scene). THis is followed by the hallucinatory encounter with the Sphinx --which Enescu said almost drove him to madness while composing it. (Catch the weird musical SAW in the percussion section when the Sphinx's death laugh dies away).

More glorious choral work, as the citizens of Thebes rush to proclaim Oedipus their savior---capped off by the luxuriant, almost lurid music of Jocasta (complete with children's chorus), whose hand in marriage is the grand prize for the man who defeats the Sphinx (little does Oedipus realize that she is actually his own mother...)

Act 3 is perhaps the best of all; Enescu's supreme control of the sequence of Oedipus' dialogues with Tiresias, Jocasta, Phorbas, and the Shepherd---during which the pieces of the horrible puzzle gradually come together---is simply one of the GREATEST examples of dramatic pacing and build-up in the entire repertoire (the climatic moment of realization is actually highlighted by a PISTOL SHOT in the orchestra!). The intensity of this entire scene (in this performance) is overwhelming.

Act 4 --Sunset in the sacred grove, culminating in Oedipus' farewell to his daughter and his transfiguration in a sacred blaze of light...as you might expect---it's sublime stuff, probably the highpoint of the score.

If you truly love GREAT music, you should acquire this first-rate recording and come to know Oedipe, and in doing so come to appreciate the vison and philosophy of the great composer which it represents.

A revelation.

LAwrence RApchak

Pablo Casals once described Enescu as "the greatest musical phenomenon since Mozart". After listening to Oedipe this does not sound like an overstatement at all. Oedipe is without any doubt one of the greatest masterpieces of the 20th century. Why is not more often performed remains a mystery to me...

I will not spend more time in describing how wonderful this recording is - others have already done it very well. I just want to mention here some of my other favorites of Enescu's works: his Symphonies nos. 2 & 3, Vox Maris (Symphonic Poem) and his Suites nos. 1 & 3 for orchestra. No serious classical music collection would be complete without these. Finally, for those of you that want to find more about this great composer I want to mention a wonderful biography that I just got from England: "George Enescu - His Life and Music" by Noel Malcolm published by Toccata Press in UK. The genius of Enescu is slowly but surely being (re)discovered.

This is a masterpiece. As such, it is perhaps notable that there are only two available commercial recordings of Enescu's seminal work but fortunately the two recordings are both very good - and even different enough that acquiring both can be defended. Lawrence Foster, who conducts this EMI set, has established himself as something of an expert on conducting Enescu and has also recorded most of his orchestral works to critical acclaim. His approach is a little more restrained than Gielen's intense Naxos version but achieves a balance and impressionist luminosity missed by the Naxos set (the EMI set is also without cuts) - without losing anything of the dramatic impact. The EMI set also has the benefit of a warm and well-balanced recorded sound (a studio record as opposed to Naxos's live one).

EMI has also assembled an excellent cast. The title role is something of a Herculean task (Oedipe is on stage more or less continuously after the short fisrt act), but Jose van Dam impresses throughout with a very thoughtful characterization and with a warm and, for lack of a better word, dignified voice; a wonderful achievement. The supporting roles are almost uniformly as impressive. Gedda, Aler and Quilico have relatively small roles but their performances are as convincing as one could hope for, and the other smaller parts are very well done (Bacquier's dramatic Tiresias deserves special mention). Among the female roles, Fassbaender is an absorbingly characterized and fabulously sung Jocasta and Hendricks a beautifully sung and sensitive Antigone. Jocelyn Tallon is a little more anonymous, but sings well nonetheless (there's also Lipovsek as a stirring and downright frightening Sphinx).

The orchestral playing and choral parts are superb throughout, emphasizing the work's impressionist connections, perhaps; the wonderfully varied textures are gorgeously realized, but Foster retains a clear vision of the work and the textural depth is never realized at the expence of the cumulative impact and forward momentum of the work. The recording is clear and warm and libretto is included (which it apparently isn't on the cheaper reissue). Urgently recommended.

Episodic and untheatrical in that maddening- unsatisfying way of 20th century opera-- but try to focus on the vocal performances. van Dam is as eloquent and sings as beautifully as you expect. Listen for the hair-raising Sphynx scene-- Lipovsek is amazing in this small part- one of the scariest things you'll hear in an opera recording anywhere. In fact- just look at all the big names in the cast list-- somebody must have really called some favors in.