Oedipus returns to the opera: The repressed in psychoanalysis and musicology

Abstract

After publishing a psychoanalytic inquiry on Enescu’s and Stravinsky’s Oedipal operas, it seemed worth offering comments about other artistic depictions based on Oedipus’ myth. Josep Soler’s and Xiao-song’s versions were studied in relation to their orientalist sources. Soler’s opera shed further light on Oedipus’ paranoid crisis in his duet with the blind seer. Seneca, Soler’s main inspiration, also influenced Méreaux’s Oedipal opera, which portrays the phantom of Laius requiring vengeance for his murder, a situation similar to the one Freud and Jones commented on in their analysis of Hamlet. Another ghost was found in Pierre Bartholomée’s Œdipe sur la route, which depicts a return of Oedipus’ own complex and its psychopathological comorbidities even after he chastised himself. Psychopathological symptoms were also observed in Sacchini’s version, probably the most famous of all Oedipal operas in its century. Furthermore, the focus now is not only on Oedipal operas, but also on a version of the Jocasta debate. Also attended to in this article are other operas and artistic representations that do not deal directly with the Oedipus myth. A list of 30 Oedipal operas with musical examples offers a fruitful space for debates on psychopathological issues related to the most important complex in psychoanalysis.

Key words:

• Oedipus
• opera
• psychoanalysis
• musicology

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my most sincere thanks to the funding agencies CAPES/Ministry of Education/Brazil, which conceded a Doctoral Grant, and also the Foundation for Research in Brasília (FAP-DF), which awarded a Travel Grant under the identification 00193-00000974/2019-55, both to Daniel Röhe. Moreover, the Finnish Science Society and the Niilo Helander Foundation provided support for the entire seminar in which this paper was for the first time presented.

Furthermore, my most sincere gratitude goes to Professor Eero Tarasti and all the participants of the 3rd Symposium and Seminar of the Academy of Cultural Heritages, on October 1–8, 2019, at Ermoupolis, Syros, Greece, and also to those that made this research possible. First is Professor Francisco Martins, Emeritus at the University of Brasília, and then Professor Bohumil Med, President and Founder of the Cultural Society Brazil–Czech Republic, whose translation of Kovařovic Édip kral and insights into Czech were most welcome. In addition, I am grateful for the contribution of Veronika Štubňová and Lea Mikulcová (Hudobné Centrum, Slovakia), whose collaboration on Ján Zimmer’s version was a precious part of my archeological research. I would also like to express my thanks to Sarah Palermo and Gabriel Smith, who provided access and copyrights on Leo Bernstein’s notes on Stravinsky’s version. I am in debt to the Tibetan Buddhist Lama Pelmo, whose knowledge of Buddhism was most welcome in my interpretation of Xiao-song’s Oedipal operas. I would also like to thank the Bibliothèque National de France and the Bibliothèque-Musée de l’Opéra National de Paris for providing full access to Méreaux’s original score from 1791.

Notes

1 The original version of the Appendix appeared in my doctoral thesis for the University of Brasília (Röhe, 2020).

2 Li (2001) states that the concept of Chinese opera was born in the seventh century ce, during the Tang dynasty.

3 Or with Simon Neal, who acts in the role of an archeologist while interpreting the title of role of Oedipus in a Frankfurt production production of Enescu’s version (Loomis, 2013; Röhe, Martins & Conceição, 2020).

4 A digitized copy of the score can be found at the Fundación Juan March website. Soler (1983), just like Robert Still, wrote about one of the patients of psychoanalysis who was also a famous composer, namely Alban Berg.

5 I am using Frank Justus Miller’s prose translation of Seneca’s verses, which follows the tradition set in the Elizabethan period. The libretto is not included in Soler’s score. The composer offers loose references to the Classical sources, making it impossible to study the score without listening to the recording and having the original textual sources in hand.

6 Graf’s son is known in the psychoanalytic milieu as the Little Hans, who grew up to work as an opera producer. His premiere at the La Scala, in Milan, was also the premiere of Maria Callas (Vives, 2012), who was invited by Leonard Bernstein to perform the role of Jocasta in Stravinsky’s version. She ironically declined based on the same reasons that Bernstein used to seduce her (Mauceri, 2019).

7 Ambroise Thomas set a Hamlet in opera in 1868 with a libretto by Alexandre Dumas the elder and Paul Meurice.

8 Such an interpretation was originally suggested by Mauerhof in 1882.

9 The Palais Garnier, which currently houses the Bibliothéque-Musée de L’Opera National de Paris, is actually known to be related to another ghost. The urban myth that inspired Gaston Leroux to create his Fantôme de L’Opéra was partially inspired by events that took place on May 20, 1896. On that occasion, the opera Hellé by Duvernoy was being performed. Upon the inauguration of the Palais Garnier, the lead soprano was not able to perform the scheduled program, which included Gounod’s Faust and Thomas' Hamlet (Snelson, 2004) – was the soprano suffering from a hysterical reaction to the ghost of the father?

10 During World War II, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony inspired a Morse sign that meant “V for Victory” and was used by the British Broadcast Company as a call sign (British Broadcasting Company, 2021).

11 Martha Mödl, the Wagnerian soprano and mezzo-soprano, performed Jocasta’s role both in Soler’s Edipo y Yocasta and in Orff’s Oedipus der tyrann, conducted by Winfried Zillig in 2013.

12 Gascoigne’s and Kinwelmershe’s version was based on an even earlier version of Lodovico Dolce’s (1549).

13 Not to be confused with Gebel's librettist for the opera Oedipus.

14 The score can be found at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz.

15 As the Appendix reveals, 19 of the 30 operas were composed after the publication of The interpretation of dreams.

16 There are depictions of both Laius’ and Jocasta’s ghosts in at least four versions, namely Seneca’s, Méreaux’s, Soler’s and Bartholomée’s. A fifth is also of worth of mention. According to Homer (1891, p. 153; Odyssey, Book XI, 271-280), Odysseus met Oedipus’ mother, the beautiful Epicaste. She went to Hades after hanging herself when in deep sorrow for she had unwittingly committed a horrendous deed.

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Daniel Röhe

Daniel Röhe is a psychotherapist in private practice in Brazil. He graduated, received a Master’s and a PhD degree, with a focus on psychoanalysis, under the supervision of professor emeritus and medical doctor Francisco Martins. He has participated in musicological conferences in Finland, the UK, and Greece in order to discuss clinical research and opera with musicology scholars. His research focus includes operas as sources of clinical insights and in music education in clinical training.