I Miss the Eighties!

The Eighties was a good decade for Sophocles. 1981 was the final year of John Dexter serving as Director of Production for the Metropolitan Opera, and the last production that he added to the repertoire was entitled simply Stravinsky. It was a “triple-bill” presenting three major works by Igor Stravinsky: a ballet (The Rite of Spring), a three-act opera (The Nightingale, the three short acts performed without interruption), and the two-act opera-oratorio Oedipus rex (also without breaks between the acts). This was the first time that soprano Jessye Norman sang the role of Jocasta, and this was also the case for tenor Timothy Jenkins as Oedipus. Only bass-baritone Franz Mazura had previous experience with the role of Creon. James Levine conducted, sharing the pit with a throne occupied by Anthony Dowell, who delivered the narrated text by Jean Cocteau in English translation.

At the end of 1983, the “Sophocles action” moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn. The Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music presented the premiere performance of The Gospel at Colonus. Director Lee Breuer and composer Bob Telson created a musical version of Sophocles’ second Oedipus play, Oedipus at Colonus, staging it as an African-American gospel service. That production then went on a tour that lasted for the better part of the decade. The performance involved multiple gospel choirs, along with (appropriately enough) the Blind Boys of Alabama and Morgan Freeman as the preacher leading the entire service.

Memories of my first encounters with both of these productions came streaming back to me as I squirmed my way through last night’s Oedipus rex program presented by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS). This marked Esa-Pekka Salonen’s return to the SFS podium. However, the center of attention was Peter Sellars, who provided staging for the entire program. Oedipus rex served as the first half of the program, followed, after the intermission, by a performance of Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms,” into which Sellars tried to shoehorn the key episode from Oedipus at Colonus in which Oedipus dies.

As a conductor, Salonen has built up a powerful command of an extensive selection from the Stravinsky catalog. (Unless I am mistaken, the first time I saw him conduct included an account of the full-length score for “Petrushka.”) He understands the nuts and bolts of every Stravinsky composition he has performed and/or recorded, and there is a consistent freshness in his approaches to interpretation.

Nevertheless, his many qualities of a conductor could not hold up to the irreparable damage wreaked by Sellars’ staging. This began at the very beginning with his decision to get rid of Cocteau’s narrated text, replacing all of it with a new text (presumably his own), which was delivered by an actress taking the role of Antigone (Breezy Leigh). Neither words nor delivery came anywhere near what Cocteau originally had in mind, meaning that the ship was already beginning to sink before Salonen had raised his baton to start the opening all-male chorus.

Antigone (Breezy Leigh) and Ismene (Laurel Jenkins) watch their father Oedipus (Sean Panikkar) prepare for death while the SFS Chorus sings (with gestures) Igor Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms” ((c) Kristen Loken, courtesy of SFS)

Directed by Andrew Whitfield, the SFS Chorus consistently established the intensity of Stravinsky’s music, beginning with the first “shock” intended to follow the text in which Cocteau established what would follow. Unfortunately, after the singing began, the attentive listener had to contend with yet another Sellars interference. Rather than letting the performance of the music disclose the dark times of the narrative, Sellars decided to have the chorus punctuate their singing with gesturing and posturing, all of which came across like Dalcroze eurhythmics on a bad acid trip. This was a “Greek chorus” that undermined the narrative, rather than guiding it; and Sellars’ extended this “device” into the choral performance of “Symphony in Psalms.”

As might be imagined, the solo vocalists did not fare much better. These were tenor Sean Panikkar in the title role, mezzo J’Nai Bridges as Jocasta, and baritone Willard White as both Creon and Tiresias. While their vocal qualities were consistently impressive, they suffered the slings and arrows of Sellars’ muddled staging as much as the Chorus did. In many respects the only element in this production that did not suffer was SFS itself. They were accountable only to Salonen; and he did all that he could to let the music rise above all the foolishness taking place in front of the orchestra and (sadly) up in the choir loft.