Stravinsky - Oedipus Rex / Michel Piccoli · Jessye Norman · Thomas Moser · Siegmund Nimsgern · Sir Colin Davis

Igor Stravinsky (Artist), Colin Davis (Artist), Jessye Norman (Artist), Michel Piccoli (Artist), Siegmund Nimsgern (Artist), Thomas Moser (Artist), Roland Bracht (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 28, 1993)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Orfeo
• ASIN: B00000597Y
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #465,949 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Oedipus Rex, opera-oratorio in 2 acts: Prologue/First Act

2. Oedipus Rex, opera-oratorio in 2 acts: Second Act

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Attention, Oedipus fans, September 3, 2005

By 

Santa Fe Listener (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Stravinsky - Oedipus Rex / Michel Piccoli · Jessye Norman · Thomas Moser · Siegmund Nimsgern · Sir Colin Davis (Audio CD)

Since first acquaintance in high school, I've remained devoted to this, the greatest of Stravinsky's choral works and second only to "The Rake's Progress" in his operatic vein, for forty years. I've tried to purchase every version available, and I must say this one from Munich isn't top notch. Sir Colin Davis spent a long, sluggish era in Bavaria, and although this performance is well sung, it leaves me cold dramatically. Maybe it's not fair to say that a neo-classical work can sound too classical, but there you are.

If you want the raw theater of Oedipus Rex, seek out the original 1963 Colin Davis performance with operatoic froces from Sadler's Wells on EMI. It feels like "Il Trovatore" in its emotional fire, something Stravinsky might have hated, but there is a lot of Verdi in this masterpiece. The Oedipus of Australian tenor Roland Dowd is one of a kind, as gripping in its total commitment as Ralph Richardson's narrator, although one does miss Cocteau's clipped, austere French.

For a large-scale reading with choral singing on the grand scale, listen to the Welser-Most reading with the London Phil., also on EMI (and like the earlier Davis, now issued as a budget CD in England.) Welser-Most sees this work as a lushly scored oratorio. His approach is more static than Davis, closer to big-boned Handel than Verdi, but very musical in all respects.

Julie Taymor staged Oedipus in Japan for Seiji Ozawa, and although the Philips CD that resulted is fine, the DVD alone brings out the ritual element she was aiming for, a close recreation in post-modern terms of masked Greek drama. This performance features Jessye Norman as Jocasta, if that is a drawing card in the later Davis reading. I find her too maigsterial, not urgent enough.

I could mention quite a few other good performances, but the only one that has totally convinced me by its dramatic passion is the early Davis.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We love Stravinsky!, November 13, 2001

By 

Dr. Fartmeister (Vancouver BC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stravinsky - Oedipus Rex / Michel Piccoli · Jessye Norman · Thomas Moser · Siegmund Nimsgern · Sir Colin Davis (Audio CD)

Aside from the Symphony of Psalms, Oedipus Rex is probably the greatest work that came out of Stravinsky's super-fun Neoclassical phase. The piece itself leaves very little to be desired--all the dramatic action and intensity of a Wagnerian opera condensed into a compact 49 minute show. You get all this plus Stravinskian neoclassicism at its best! What do you have to lose, really?
I reccommend this recording above all others mainly for the outstanding performance of the baritone Sigmund Nimsgern in the dual roles of Kreon and The Messenger. The power of this man's voice alone is enough to make this disc worth it.
But there's more! Thomas Moser displays some virtuosic acting ability in his performance (particularly because Stravinsky's rather oddly shaped melodic lines make expression much more difficult than anything written by, say, Bellini), and he does an excellent job at creating the most frightening musical atmosphere possible in the second act's duet between Jocasta and Oedipus. However, this phenomenon is partially the fault of the incomparable Jessye Norman.
The other really great thing about this performance is the casting of Roland Bracht as the gnarled old blind prophet Tiresias. I cannot imagine a voice better suited to this part than the haunting bass of Mr. Bracht. Although such a timbre would not be suited to many roles from, say, the late romantic Italian literature, this voice certainly finds its niche in this role.
Once again, it all goes to show that Igor Stravinsky is better than everyone.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful 20th-century music drama, June 3, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Stravinsky - Oedipus Rex / Michel Piccoli · Jessye Norman · Thomas Moser · Siegmund Nimsgern · Sir Colin Davis (Audio CD)

Imagine a music drama that conveys the essence of Greek tragedy in contemporary language. That is what you get in OEDIPUS REX, one of Igor Stravinsky's masterpieces, and, like many of his works, too little-known. Styled an "opera-oratorio", its plot is of course based on the legendary Sophocles play about the parricide/incestuous king, Oedipus. The text is sung not in the original Greek but in Latin. (For Stravinsky, Latin perfectly expressed the timelessness and universality of the subject.) A narrator, speaking in the audience's language, steps in before each scene and explains what is about to take place. Both text and music combine to recreate the "ritualistic" qualities of Greek drama. Stravinsky's music is austere and monumental, with driving rhythms that propel the tragedy forward like the wheels of fate. His two sources of inspiration here were Baroque oratorio (Bach, Handel) and 19th-century Italian opera (Rossini, Verdi). An example of the former is the opening chorus, which is as massive and inexorable as the opening of the ST. MATTHEW PASSION. An example of the latter is all of Act II Scene 1, especially Jocasta and Oedipus' witty, manic tarantella-like duet. Here, as everywhere, Stravinsky shows himself the expert musical
"synthesist" - drawing from disparate stylistic influences and mixing them together in his modern "blender" into an integrated whole.

This recording is as perfect as you can get. All the soloists are excellent, including tenor Thomas Moser who handles his difficult music wonderfully and conveys his character's hubris and - at the end - horror and shame. Mezzo-soprano Jessye Norman is a vivid Jocasta, and bass-baritone Sigmund Nimsgern is outstanding in the roles of Creon and the Messenger (he make's Creon's monologue sound like a buffo aria!) Conductor Colin Davis really lets the orchestra shine behind the singers, using well-chosen tempos and bringing out many wonderful orchestral details in the often polyphonic textures. Singers, chorus, and orchestra all generate a lot of dramatic intensity. The French narration by Michel Piccoli is exciting, though a bit overblown. The sound engineers chose to alot only two tracks to the whole CD, which I find a little annoying. However, this arragement will encourage you to listen to the entire work in one sitting, so that the full force of the drama and the music can hit you head-on.