Oedipus Rex

Director: Julie Taymor
Screenwriters: E.E. Cummings, Kazuko Matsuoka

Institute History

  • 1993 Sundance Film Festival

Description

In September Stravinsky's Oedipus Flex was produced for stage and film at the Saito Kinen Festival in Japan. As directed by Julie Taymor, it was the most ambitious theatrical realization ever attempted of the opera/oratorio, utilizing striking visual elements, including a massive set floating above a reflecting pool. A distinguished international team of designers collaborated, including Seiji Ozawa, who conducted the festival orchestra and chorus.

Taymor has stated in her notes: Stravinsky's decision to compose a work based on the play by Sophocles was prompted by his desire to find a universal plot,  . . . Seeking to create a world that is both ancient and timeless, the designers and I were struck by the similarities between the early art of Japan and the pre-Greek period.  . . . We were as much moved by time's corrosion of this ancient art's facade as by its original beauty. This concept of deterioration, erosion, the corruption from within that is polluting the entire society is the springboard for this archetypical drama of purification.  . . . Stravinsky envisioned the use of masks for the principal singers in order that they appear as living statues, emblems of the characters and states of being they represent,


Friday Jan 22 10:30 am
Holiday Village Cinema III

Saturday Jan 30 6:00 pm
Prospector Square Theatre

$6.00

Screening Details

Credits

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