About the work
Opera in four acts by George Enescu to a French libretto by Edmond Fleg, tracing Oedipus's entire life from birth to death. Enescu worked on it from 1910 until completing the orchestration in 1931; it premiered on 13 March 1936 at the Paris Opéra (Palais Garnier).
Plot
Act I shows Oedipus's birth and the oracle's prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother, Act II his youth in Corinth, the killing of Laius and his triumph over the Sphinx. Act III follows Sophocles's "Oedipus Rex" through Jocasta's suicide and Oedipus's self-blinding, and Act IV his death at Colonus after Sophocles's late play.
Cultural significance
Enescu fuses Romanian folk elements, quarter-tone passages and late-Romantic, impressionist colour into what is now regarded as his masterwork. After its premiere, however, the opera fell into decades of neglect and has only gained more regular performances since its Romanian premiere in 1958 and international revivals such as Salzburg in 2019.