✭✭✭✭✭

by Igor Stravinsky, directed by François Girard

Canadian Opera Company, Hummingbird Centre, Toronto

September 27-October 12, 2002

"An Acclaimed Production Returns"

The Canadian opera Company's production of Stravinsky's "Oedipus Rex with Symphony of Psalms" garnered such rave reviews on its appearance at this year's Edinburgh Festival that more praise from me seems somehow superfluous.  Canadians are sometimes insecure about what they praise, but we knew this production was brilliant when we saw its première in 1997.  It's heartening to have critics in Scotland and England confirm our views.  It makes one proud to have Canadian productions such as this represent Canada abroad.

"Oedipus" is as impressive on second viewing as it was on the first.  While one no longer feels the initial surprise, one more easily focusses on how masterfully all the component parts of the production work together.  Stravinsky's "Symphony of Psalms" (1930), related both in music and language to "Oedipus" (1927), works so logically as the prologue to the opera one might have thought it had been intended that way.  Director François Girard has linked the two works in ways that are all the more effective for being so simple.  The shallow, confined space he gives the chorus for the "Psalms" contrasts with the vast open space of "Oedipus".  The screen on which are projected the names of those who have died of AIDS covers two-thirds of the stage opening above the chorus becoming visually a kind weight that presses down upon them as they sing their praise of God. 

The actor who will be the Speaker in "Oedipus" simultaneously writes names in a book while identically clad men enter to write names on the ground.  They will become part of the chorus seeking the truth in "Oedipus" while he will present the opera as an example of how the gods use one man's power of reason to cause his downfall only to open up a greater mystery.  The writing of name in "Psalms" is echoed in "Oedipus" with the slow unrolling of a single meandering drawn line that leads ineluctably to a crown as Oedipus comes closer in his quest to discover the murderer whose presence has brought a plague upon Thebes.  The writing on the screens in both cases points to an incomprehensible fate, commemorated in "Psalms", confronted in "Oedipus".

Michael Levine's design again amazes.  Oedipus seated on an oversized chair atop a writhing mound of bodies while men search for familiar faces is unforgettable.  The chair may be a throne but dwarfs Oedipus as if no one man is adequate to wield power over others.  In making Oedipus look like a child playing at being king it already reified subsequent discovery of incest with his mother Jocasta.  He reigns over a kingdom of death that only his punishment can bring to life.  The industrial lamps the male chorus uses to search the mountain blind when aimed at the audience, but in our first glimpse of the scene and after Oedipus's own blinding, neatly fusing Sophocles' themes of blindness and insight.  The ritualized gestures first glimpsed in the chorus of "Psalms" become magnified with the mythic characters of "Oedipus".  Just as Levine's costumes make them look wrapped up in cloth, so the stylized gestures make the characters appear like human beings trapped in the confines of an unalterable story.  Alain Lortie's lighting, emphasizing the contrasts between light and shadow, enhances the sculptural effect of the design.

The performance of "Symphony of Psalms" on its own is masterful.  The COC chorus's natural ability to blend and balance line against line shows why they have become the bedrock of every COC performance.  The COC orchestra under conductor Bernhard Kontarsky aptly catches the tone of fervent meditation, relishing the tang of Stravinsky's sonorities.  Perhaps to contrast with it, Kontarsky chooses tempi for "Oedipus" that strike me as a shade too brisk.  While this makes the reference to baroque oratorio clear, especially in Jocasta's aria, it does not quite suit Girard's ritualistic presentation.

Replacing Colm Feore in the role as Speaker, Don McKellar brings a different note to the work.  Less overtly histrionic, he introduces "Oedipus" still in the contemplative character he presented in "Psalms".  This helps strengthen the ties between the two works and lends "Oedipus" a sense of melancholy, anticipating the mood of the final chorus, that  I don't remember from Feore's performance.

Tenor Michael Schade triumphs again as Oedipus.  Even within the constraints of costume and stylized gestures, he conveys the character's detailed emotional descent from hauteur to disbelief, horror and penitence.  The peevish tone he brings to Oedipus at his height suits Girard's stage picture of him as a child-king.  After the shock of Jocasta's revelation, his tone becomes noticeably rounder, one might say more mature, as Oedipus confronts who he is and what he has done.

Polish contralto Ewa Podleś is magnificent as Jocasta.  Her creamy tone and the fullness of her voice give Jocasta a majesty even when Stravinsky's music seems to mock her for believing that oracles lie.  She more than mastered Kontarsky's quick pace, tossing off Stravinsky's repetitions and jagged runs with her usual aplomb.

Of the other singers, American bass-baritone Peteris Eglitis is a rather gruff Creon, barking out his lines with little contrast from one to the other.  Canadian Robert Pomakov lends his commanding bass to the role of Tiresias.  Canadian bass-baritone Olivier Laquerre and tenor Michael Colvin show the Messenger and the Shepherd as pawns horrified by their contribution to the divine scheme that makes a beggar of a king.

"Oedipus Rex with Symphony of Psalms" may have a running time of only one hour and fifteen minutes, but its impact is monumental.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Ewa Podleś and Michael Schade. ©2002 Douglas Robertson.