He kills his father and marries his mother, but at no point is actually aware of their identities. Guilty through no fault of his own, Oedipus gets more and more deeply entangled in a destiny which was preordained for him. The story by the Greek dramatist Sophocles has enthralled people since antiquity; and when the composer Enescu attended a performance of the tragedy Oedipus Rex at the Comédie Française in 1909, he was deeply moved by it. He adapted the play as a monumental choral opera that is regarded today as Enescu’s masterpiece. Œdipe combines French Impressionism with Romanian folk music and is remarkable for its colourful scoring, powerful rhythms and song-like melodies.
Œdipe opened at the Festspielhaus on 16 July 2025. The Bregenz production was directed by the internationally acclaimed stage director Andreas Kriegenburg. Together with stage designer Harald B. Thor and costume designer Tanja Hofmann, Kriegenburg related each of the four independently narrated acts to one element: fire, water, air and earth, combined with archaic materials like wood, clay, plain fabric as well as bare skin. The Finnish star conductor Hannu Lintu was music director of the production.
