The curse of Labdacids in the 20th and 21th centuries opera

Authors

  • Ronald Forero Universidad de la Sabana
  • Lucio Martín Forero Álvarez Universidad Autónoma de Colombia

Abstract

In the 20th and 21th centuries, Stravinsky (Oedipus Rex, 1927), Enescu (Oedipe, 1936), Orff (Antigone, 1949; Oedipus der Tyrann, 1959), Turnage (Greek, 1988), Theodorakis (Αντιγόνη, 1999), Le Gendre (The Burial at Thebes, 2008), and Anderson (Thebans, 2014), among others, composed operas about the myth of Labdacids. A fact quite significant if it is taken into account that during Romanticism there are just two musical dramas by Mendelssohn related to characters of the Theban Cycle (Antigone, 1841 and Oedipus auf Kolonos, 1845). The aim of this article, therefore, is to analyse the operas about this myth composed since 1901 in order to understand its resurgence in the contemporary operatic context.

Keywords:

Myth, Labdacids, Theban Cycle, Opera, Oedipus, Antigone

Author Biographies

Ronald Forero, Universidad de la Sabana

Profesor Universidad de la Sabana. Colombia. Doctor en Textos de la Antigüedad Clásica y su Pervivencia.

Lucio Martín Forero Álvarez, Universidad Autónoma de Colombia

Historiador con énfasis en Patrimonio histórico y Museología, Universidad Autónoma de Colombia.