When Stravinsky composed Oedipus Rex in 1927, Jean Cocteau wrote a French libretto based on Sophocles’s tragedy, which was then translated into Latin, a language Stravinsky called “not dead but turned to stone”. It was to be mere syllables to sing notes to, immune to “vulgarisation” as he put it – a way to tell a tragedy without too much pesky drama getting in the way.
In choreographer Wayne McGregor’s production of Oedipus Rex, paired with a new ballet based on the myth of Antigone and premiered by the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, there is drama, but it is of the stark, unsentimental kind. The double bill is entitled Jocasta’s Line, as Jocasta, queen of Thebes, sees her husband/son (spoiler, they’re the same person!) and daughter meet tragic ends. It is visually striking and exciting in scale – the first half austere, the second softer – and pristinely danced, but still with a sense of distance, as of the gods from mere mortals.
