Neither here nor there: the dramatic tension between the spoken word and music performance in Igor Stravinsky'sOedipus rex (1927)

Abstract

Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex was based on Sophocles’ classic tragedy

Oedipus Tyrannus. Jean Cocteau wrote the libretto for Stravinsky in French, the

text was then translated into Latin. Le speaker speaking in the audience’s native

language with a detached voice is added to the opera-oratorio to narrate the events

of the story throughout. With its mixed genres, the juxtaposition of the dead

language and the vernacular, the contrast of the spoken word and the music

performance, and the intertexual references in the music, a strong dialectical

tension is created.

This study is a critical review of the narrative mode of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex.

For a very long time, literature on Oedipus Rex has mainly focused on the

presentation of its music. However, as an opera-oratorio, Oedipus Rex is

composed to stage. This study aims at investigating the theatrical significance of

the work, for its theatrical presentation is influential and profound in 20th century

music theatre. Of particular note is the use of le speaker. The narration inserted in

between each musical episode creates a sense of ambivalence in the storytelling.

The work is therefore a bold challenge to the way stories have been told in theatre

over the past centuries.

The discussion concludes with the analysis of Julie Taymor and Seiji Ozawa’s

film version of Oedipus Rex in 1992. With Japanese elements infused in the work,

the dramatic tension between the spoken word and the music performance is

further polarised. This production is an example of how a combination of the

spoken word and the music performance pushes the Oedipus story further away

from Sophocles’ original.