# The Most 'Austere' Opera?



## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

I often wonder why Carl Orff's _Oedipus der Tyrann_ remains virtually unknown to scholars, critics and opera lovers. There has also been very little commentary on it since the premiere in Stuttgart in 1959. It's a very unusual work of course since it does away with ornament and almost all lyricism in favor of:

*1)* A stripped-down orchestral accompaniment with percussive instruments dominating.

*2)* Long stretches of monotone declamation upon a single note.

*3)* Outbursts of anguished melismatic ululation.

*4)* Spoken dialogue in a work lasting close to 3 hours.

Some listeners have said that it makes Stravinsky's _Oedipus Rex_ sound as lush as Strauss's _Rosenkavalier_ but I personally find it to be mesmerizing. Sadly most opera history books including the ones that specialize in XX century works do not mention it. In the recent _Cambridge Companion to 20th Century Opera_ it's simply listed in the index. And _Opera in the 20th Century_ disparages it in two sentences:

_"A largely unlistenable opera that is virtually musicless. The singers' lines hurled out in feral plainchant and the audience, generally, hurling themselves into and up the exit aisles long before the final curtain..."_

Let's see if the forthcoming _A History of Opera, The Last 400 Years_ by Roger Parker and Carolyn Abbate due out in November will offer a more positive assessment.

The Opera Critic website does include 5 photos from a 2006(?) performance but oddly there is not a single review:

http://www.theoperacritic.com/reviewsa.php?&schedid=daroedtyr1206

It was also disappointing to see the early critics questioning not only whether it could properly be considered an opera, but whether Orff's _"apparent lack of compositional intervention"_ resulted in a piece of music theater _"without music."_ Even the Gramophone magazine reviewer of the first recording found it to be…. *"hard listening"*.

Here is a part:

_"The orchestra is huge, with six flutes, six oboes, no other winds, eight trumpets (off stage), six trombones, nine double basses but no other strings, six grand pianos, four harps, organ, celesta, glass-harp, mandolin, several Javanese gongs and close on 20 percussion players each hitting a variety of exotic objects. Yet the total effect is extremely austere. I can understand that in the theatre purging by pity and terror might well take place; but in my study, even in stereo, six sides of chanting on middle C is hard listening, even with this greatly accomplished cast. If you didn't like Carmina Burana you are most unlikely to bear with Oedipus tyrannos though I do believe one should try all music once. If you do try Orff's Oedipus you will admire Astrid Varnay's characterization and her unbeautiful but brilliant and musicianly negotiation of a diabolical vocal part; James Harper's sinister Tiresias; above all, Gerhard Stolze's searching, superbly resourceful Oedipus, inflected with vivid understanding whether in speech or what must optimistically be described as song. And if anybody makes us believe that this is good music it is Mr. Stolze (if only he would sing Wagner and Strauss as accurately as he pitches Orff)"_

Paul Moor of _TIME_ magazine was a little better:

_"For a non-German-speaking audience, this opera has long boring stretches because the music is so subservient to the text. Nevertheless, Orff has created a theater work of gripping power..."_

(An Orff Festival at the Metropolitan Opera in the spring with Antigonae, Oedipus der Tyrann and Prometheus performed on 3 successive evenings would be so nice)

Two questions:

*1)* Do you think _Oedipus der Tyrann_ will ever find its place in the hearts of a wider segment of opera lovers or do you see it as an 'extreme connoisseur piece'?

*2)* For those of us who already know and love this fascinating work what is the best way to advocate on its behalf?

(Here is a picture of the first Deutsche Grammophon recording with Rafael Kubelik (conductor) and Gerhard Stolze in the title role)

http://991.com/newGallery/Orff-Oedipus-Der-Tyran-560396.jpg


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

Xavier said:


> Let's see if the forthcoming _A History of Opera, The Last 400 Years_ by Roger Parker and Carolyn Abbate due out in November will offer a more positive assessment.


I already have Abbate & Parker. It makes no mention of this Orff opera at all.

BTW, Grove only references this opera by a note also.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

I was surprised to find the whole thing on youtube the other day while searching for something else, it also has Antigonae. Unfortunately spoken interludes is the one thing that kills an opera for me and random percussion outbursts don't help much either. But I particularly disliked what sounded like a bad racist parody of african chants. Listening to Antigonae now, not totally hating it.


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## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

tyroneslothrop said:


> I already have Abbate & Parker. It makes no mention of this Orff opera at all.
> 
> BTW, Grove only references this opera by a note also.


Thanks for the update tyrone.

A complete omission in the new 624 page history by Abbate and Parker is especially disappointing...


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

Xavier said:


> Thanks for the update tyrone.
> 
> A complete omission in the new 624 page history by Abbate and Parker is especially disappointing...


Tiny correction- 548pp without the references and index. But very scholarly though. I like how it challenges the preconceptions of opera's birth right from the first page


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

Interestingly enough, although Abbate & Parker doesn't address either Orff or this particular opera, Sadie's slimmer volume on the history of opera does touch on it.


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## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

tyroneslothrop said:


> I like how it challenges the preconceptions of opera's birth right from the first page


Yes, we keep hearing that opera was invented in Florence in the late 1500s but both ancient Greek drama and medieval religious drama that began around the year 1200 were sung music theater.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

We have a good idea of how antique Greek theater was done, the principal(s) declaiming their texts, likely in a manner which was highly 'intoned' to a point where it might be near 'sprechstimme,' with the chorus singing commentary or 'filling in the details of the action' -- in unison and in a differently intoned scale than our contemporary western scale. (ever notice that ALL choral parts in Orff's Carmina Burana are unison singing, not a scrap of harmonization in the chorus parts themselves?)

It sounds as if the composer intended to more accurately recreate that antique Greek delivery. But, it IS very difficult for any 20th century mind to 're-create' that atmosphere without its sounding freighted with a contemporary sensibility of 'what primitive' is, and often that sensibility is cluttered with some very kitsch associations and / or memories of prior similar (and poor) attempts. I think these 'fail' in that when we think of antiquity like that, we overlook the fact that when this sort of theater was happening in its own time it was as modern as it got / gets. I think Orff approached the work with too literal a mind, or perhaps too much 'reverence' or 'respect.'

Mistaken notions, then, lead to a work like this. (Further mistaken notions led to the 'birth of western opera, so mistaken they created - literally - another genre, Lol.) The monotonal opening recitatives one after the other in a series, sound more like western liturgical services than 'Greek drama.' It is hard to escape one's own time....

Stravinsky's Cantata _Oedipus Rex_ is also very 'austere' yet while Stravinsky gave more than a nod to the 'formulaic' manner of presenting antique Greek theater, he did not, to the benefit of a highly successful work (which is imho a masterpiece), capitulate to 'recreating it literally' or attempt to slip out of the person of being a western composer.

Darius Milhaud's _Les Choéphores_ is also I think infinitely more successful in 'bringing the 20th century listener' back to an idea of that antique Greek theatrical practice without quite so literally attempting to recreate it. (It is a work I think should be better known and much more exposed / performed) Just listen to the sections 'Présages' (@ 21'28''), 'Exhortation' (24'26''), Conclusion (31'10'') to hear what is so effectively done working off of the idea of Greek delivery without the literalism or perhaps, over-reverence or respect. Perhaps Orff's 'mistake' was in making his Oedipus a work with any singing at all....
Darius Milhaud; _Les Choéphores_ -- The Libation Bearers' -- part II of Aeschylus' Oresteia 





If this Orff 'Oedipus" has any potential to work on some level, I think one would have to be in attendance at a live fully staged performance, and familiar both with the text, and / or the text in German to get involved with the 'actuality of the drama.' To be kind, this is an opera / oratorio in which it seems 'music' is far down the list of priorities: I am certain that intellectually, Orff thought he was best serving the text. Without being in attendance, a recording gives us only the 'music.' It seems most to me like one of those misperceived notions of antiquity, a post card of something old and dusty which is presented as if it were not new, fresh, whole, but 'from a distant past,' with mistaken and over-reverent notions of 'how it was done,' including a highly mannered and failed idea of 'primitivism.' To me, the little I could stand had the effect of being stunningly monotonous and hopelessly 'contrived.'


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

PetrB said:


> It sounds as if the composer intended to more accurately recreate that antique Greek delivery. But, it IS very difficult for any 20th century mind to 're-create' that atmosphere without its sounding freighted with a contemporary sensibility of 'what primitive' is, and often that sensibility is cluttered with some very kitsch associations and / or memories of prior similar (and poor) attempts. I think these 'fail' in that when we think of antiquity like that, we overlook the fact that when this sort of theater was happening in its own time it was as modern as it got / gets. I think Orff approached the work with too literal a mind, or perhaps too much 'reverence' or 'respect.'
> 
> Mistaken notions, then, lead to a work like this. (Further mistaken notions led to the 'birth of western opera, so mistaken they created - literally - another genre, Lol.) The monotonal opening recitatives one after the other in a series, sound more like western liturgical services than 'Greek drama.' It is hard to escape one's own time....


Sadie says: "Orff had already begun his search for a new form of 'total theatre', often drawing on Baroque models. In practice this meant a style of extreme simplicity [...] with their endless diatonic harmony and mechanically repetitive rhythms."


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

tyroneslothrop said:


> Sadie says: "Orff had already begun his search for a new form of 'total theatre', often drawing on Baroque models. In practice this meant a style of extreme simplicity [...] with their endless diatonic harmony and mechanically repetitive rhythms."


Fine. I think he failed utterly in this one work, anyway.


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Fine. I think he failed utterly in this one work, anyway.


It's hard to get excited about "endless diatonic harmony and mechanically repetitive rhythms" 

(This is why Glass is not my favorite modern opera composer either!)


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## tyroneslothrop (Sep 5, 2012)

Xavier said:


> Thanks for the update tyrone.
> 
> A complete omission in the new 624 page history by Abbate and Parker is especially disappointing...


I suspect you'll have to wait for the upcoming revision of Griffel's dictionary to see more on this in print:
http://www.amazon.com/Operas-English-Margaret-Ross-Griffel/dp/0810882728/ref=la_B001H9RFLK_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352153389&sr=1-1


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