At A Glance
THE STORY OF OEDIPUS REX
While Igor Stravinsky had picked the story of Oedipus Rex precisely because he assumed everybody already knew the plot, posterity has vindicated that a composer or librettist should not assume much about an audience’s literary background. Most opera-goers have doubtless appreciated the Speaker’s role in reminding us of the classic plot: how Oedipus, King of Thebes and husband of Jocasta, is urged by the Oracle of Delphi (whose directive is conveyed by Oedipus’s brother-in-law Creon) to save his city from plague by discovering who killed King Laïus; how, at his own unwitting urging, Oedipus himself is revealed (reluctantly, by the blind seer Tiresius) to be the ignorant murderer of King Laïus; how he accuses Creon of fomenting this accusation in an effort to unseat him; how it is further disclosed (by a messenger) that his ancestry is not what he had thought, and (by a shepherd) that he is in fact the son of King Laïus and Jocasta, Oedipus’ own wife; how the revelation of this unsuspecting but nonetheless incestuous bond and inadvertent patricide causes Jocasta to commit suicide and leads Oedipus to blind himself with her brooch.
While Igor Stravinsky had picked the story of Oedipus Rex precisely because he assumed everybody already knew the plot, posterity has vindicated that a composer or librettist should not assume much about an audience’s literary background. Most opera-goers have doubtless appreciated the Speaker’s role in reminding us of the classic plot: how Oedipus, King of Thebes and husband of Jocasta, is urged by the Oracle of Delphi (whose directive is conveyed by Oedipus’s brother-in-law Creon) to save his city from plague by discovering who killed King Laïus; how, at his own unwitting urging, Oedipus himself is revealed (reluctantly, by the blind seer Tiresius) to be the ignorant murderer of King Laïus; how he accuses Creon of fomenting this accusation in an effort to unseat him; how it is further disclosed (by a messenger) that his ancestry is not what he had thought, and (by a shepherd) that he is in fact the son of King Laïus and Jocasta, Oedipus’ own wife; how the revelation of this unsuspecting but nonetheless incestuous bond and inadvertent patricide causes Jocasta to commit suicide and leads Oedipus to blind himself with her brooch.
