“Where do we go from here?” was the big ask at the 2023 Edinburgh International Festival. The answer – “Rituals that Unite Us” – is this year’s festival theme. A spectacular son et lumière opening event invited us to dig underneath the obvious in the festival city to reveal deeper discoveries. The theme continued with this immersive promenade performance by Scottish Opera of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, a work steeped in Greek ritual storytelling, performed in the elegant galleried grand hall of the Museum of Scotland.
Scottish Opera has built on its experience of producing community opera – Pagliacci in a circus tent, Candide in a car park – here inspired by the special creative possibilities of a museum at night. With the orchestra planted in the centre, where the fish ponds used to be, performing spaces were focussed on either end of the oval building with a narrow raised walkway in front of the players linking the action. Audience members could choose to be at floor level, mingling with the performers and chorus, or up in the first gallery strolling with eight Gods, lavishly costumed figures silently observing the unfolding results of the plague they have unleashed on Thebes, a punishment on the people for sheltering the murderer of King Laius and watching as Oedipus walks straight into the snare set for him at birth.
Stravinsky wanted his characters to give the impression of living statues, so director Roxana Haines placed them on individual plinths amongst the ground floor audience, the Royals in splendid golden cloaks over plain white tunics. Haines wished to give the work more women's agency so added female singers. The chorus of 25 professionals and 75 community singers was a huge seething character, split between performing spaces, expertly and excitingly choreographed by Alex McCabe and Riccardo Olivier. Dressed in black trousers with light cream tops, decorated with a distinctive black fringe at the front and wings on the back, they were constantly on the move with impressively stylised ritual movements, interacting with the crowd and singing as if their lives depended on it. Community opera needs an audience to make it work, the chorus with its sense of the collective drew the audience and performers together as the terrible truth about Oedipus their King played out.
Principal roles were well sung, Shengzhi Ren’s tenor, intense and emotive as Oedipus, was matched by Roland Wood’s robustly sung Creon. Kitty Whately was a formidable Jocasta, really owning the role, cheered loudly from her plinth as she joined the drama, a huge high point so impressive they did it twice. Callum Thorpe was outstanding as the blind prophet Tiresias, his rich authoritative bass reluctantly revealing that the Kings’s murderer is a King. Emyr Wyn Jones as the Messenger and Seumas Begg as the Shepherd completed the singers. Wendy Seager as the Museum’s cleaning lady emerged as the Narrator, setting the scene and linking key points in the story.
The production looked smart with Anna Orton’s eye-catching costumes and Robert Dickson’s lighting. Conducted by Stuart Stratford, the orchestra was terrific, keeping the dramatic momentum with pinpoint sharp woodwind and percussion with visceral brass. Due to the layout, there were two assistant conductors constantly mirroring Stratford and two more who popped up to guide principal singers.
For the audience, spaces were generally bagged and there was little promenading but good interaction at floor level. The acoustic was like a giant bathroom, suiting some of the music, thrilling at the big choral moments but problematic when characters and the action were at the other end of the space, even for us looking down from God level. Disappointingly, a basic free-sheet replaced the traditional programme, more details – including the libretto – only available online. It may have been tricky in the space, but this performance missed supertitles which would have explained the detail of the many ritual behaviours of the chorus, including a baffling procession with a red mask on a broom handle. It would also have informed the audience what was going on when the action was elsewhere and distant.
Taking this more as an event rather than a traditional opera, there was lots to like and applaud. The creative use of the museum space, the human rituals and the sense of community all coming together to enact Sophocles tale of Oedipus’ brutal journey of discovery. In an amusing final touch, cleaning lady Seager wheeled Jocasta off on her trolley replacing her with a notice “Exhibit permanently removed”, Whately taking her bow in cleaning lady garb, but with a golden robe. Nicely done.
