ABSTRACT
George Enesco composed Oedipe at great speed in 1921–22, but the score took ten more years to orchestrate, due to its complexity and Enesco's exhausting career as a concert performer. Oedipe's victory over the Sphinx at the midpoint of the opera is the turning point in the drama, since Fleg's Sphinx is the daughter of Destiny; when he defeats her, Oedipe, who has up until this victory struggled in vain against Destiny, turns from a passive victim into a man who takes the initiative. Accordingly, as soon as Oedipe achieves this degree of self-understanding, the Eumenides summon him into their sacred grove. Enesco resolved from the outset that his Oedipe would adopt a humanistic, psychological approach to the title figure and encourage people to empathize with him. In Oedipe – but not in Sophocles – Creon, supported by the chorus, banishes Oedipe from Thebes. Oedipe responds to the High Priest's appeal, like Sophocles' Oedipus, with sympathy.
