Enescu’s ambitious only opera opens LPO season

By Matthew Rye, 24 September 2017

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“raising the dramatic temperature in what can seem a static, even statuesque work”

Reviewed at Royal Festival Hall, London on 23 September 2017

Enescu, Œdipe

Vladimir Jurowski, Conductor

Paul Gay, Œdipe

Sir Willard White, Tirésias

Christopher Purves, Créon

Graham Clark, Shepherd

Mischa Schelomianski, High Priest

Insung Sim, Phorbas

Boris Pinkhasovich, Thésée

Marius Vlad, Laios

Ruxandra Donose, Jocaste

Ildikó Komlósi, La Sphinge (The Sphinx)

Gabriela Iştoc, Antigone

Dame Felicity Palmer, Mérope

Maxim Mikhailov, Old Man

Choir of the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra

Romanian Radio Children's Choir

London Philharmonic Orchestra

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****1

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Matthew Rye

Matthew read music at Oxford and worked in music journalism for 30 years as a writer, critic and editor. He wrote numerous programme and CD booklet notes, spent 13 years as a Daily Telegraph critic, worked at BBC Music Magazine and was reviews editor of The Strad. He also wrote for The Wagner Journal and Opera and blogged at ferneklang.blogspot.co.uk. He was general editor of 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die (Cassell Illustrated, 2007) and was the author of a new series of eBooks, Masterpieces of Music (Erudition).

Complex Oedipus: Enescu’s ambitious only opera opens the LPO season