Wajdi Mouawad directs Enesco's opera Œdipe at Paris Opera through October 2021

Wajdi Mouawad's production of Georges Enesco's opera Œdipe runs at the Opéra national de Paris until October 14, 2021. The Lebanese-Québécois director connects the work to his homeland, substituting ancient Phoenicia for Romania in a spoken prologue. Enesco's only opera, created in 1936 at Garnier but long neglected, blends Romanian folk music with influences from Fauré and Bartók. Christopher Maltman stars as Œdipe, with Ekaterina Gubanova as Jocaste and Clive Bayley as Tiresias. Anne Sofie von Otter appears as Mérope, and Clémentine Margaine plays the Sphinx. Costumes by Emmanuelle Thomas and hair designs by Cécile Kretschmar evoke a barbaric Greece. The production explores themes of familial violence and destiny, drawing parallels to Lebanon's civil war. Enesco's score uses microtones and Byzantine heterophony, creating what Yehudi Menuhin called the opera's most haunting moment in the Shepherd's Air. The work represents a synthesis of Eastern monody and Western polyphony.