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

Abstract

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.