“Oedipus Rex,” in both Sophocles’ original play and the restrained but dramatically rich musical-theatrical work that Stravinsky later fashioned from it, is a story about secrets and the harm they do. The plague that is decimating the ancient city of Thebes when the story begins turns out to have been brought on by a long-ago murder that remains unsolved and unavenged — in part, perhaps, because no one involved wants to look too closely into the matter.

Butdirector Peter Sellars不是一个伟大的信徒，允许隐藏隐藏。

In the majestic and potent Stravinsky double bill that Sellars and San Francisco Symphony Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen brought to the stage of Davies Symphony Hall on Friday, June 10, featuring “Oedipus Rex” alongside “Symphony of Psalms,” everything comes out in the open — all the anguish, all the deceit, all the pride and self-destruction.

没有拒绝它。您可以像主要作品令人痛苦的中央图像中的俄狄浦斯一样散发着眼睛，而悲剧仍然会明显地记录下来。

结果不仅是一个令人着迷的戏剧和音乐体验，而且还对Stravinsky的辉煌和有问题的作品进行了颠覆性的重塑。1927年在巴黎首映的“俄狄浦斯·雷克斯（Oedipus Rex）”是一部发挥双重游戏的作品，探究了古希腊悲剧的富有表现力，同时又齐头并进。

Esa-Pekka Salonen and Peter Sellars: 30 years of making hard music sound easy

斯特拉文斯基（Stravinsky）将作品称为“ Opera-Oratorio”，这是一种混合造币，似乎暗示着“戏剧性，但不是太多”。（可以通过完整的舞台或静态音乐会风格完成；通常选择哪种方法，另一个似乎是可取的。）他坚持在拉丁语中的libretto上，大概是一种与观众保持表达距离的方式。“俄狄浦斯·雷克斯（Oedipus Rex）”表现出表达的表现，同时否认它正在做任何这样的事情 - 斯特拉文斯基（Stravinsky）的商标。

The Sellars-Salonen version, created in 2009 as a farewell offering at the end of Salonen’s tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, simply declines to swallow the bait. What Friday’s audience witnessed was full-on tragedy, without hesitation or hedging.

在戴维斯（Davies）的舞台上，乐团在后方，交响曲合唱团的士兵穿着露台的街头衣服，塞拉斯（Sellars）部署了主要表演者的水平但不断变化的地层。James F. Ingalls的精力照明设计使整个程序都弹出了。

Without sacrificing any of the score’s grandiose clarity, Sellars made it an into a spectacle at once intimate and shocking. Oedipus (tenor Sean Panikkar, in a performance marked by burnished tone and heartfelt immediacy) emerged as a figure torn between his own self-conception — the great and renowned solver of the Sphinx’s riddle, the savior of his city — and the darker truth of his own unwitting crimes.

Baritone Willard White undertook a trio of roles — as Creon, Oedipus’ brother-in-law and political rival; as the blind prophet Tiresias; and as the messenger who confirms everyone’s worst fears about Oedipus’ past — and gave each one a distinctive musical and theatrical shape. The Jocasta of mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges sounded both noble and tender, and tenor Jose Simerilla Romero offered a gorgeous and all-too-brief cameo as the shepherd whose softheartedness lets the infant Oedipus survive.

If Sellars’ staging refuses to allow Stravinsky’s steely reserve to interpose itself emotionally between the tale and its audience, Salonen and the orchestra were on the same page throughout. For all its precision and instrumental transparency, this was a performance that found every opportunity for communicative urgency. Dynamic contrasts landed like thunderbolts; lyrical passages twisted and turned with irresistible fervor.

But Sellars had one last remarkable trick up his sleeve. “Oedipus Rex” includes a part for a narrator, speaking not in Latin but in the language of the audience, and explaining the premise and the background story for anyone whose command of Sophocles may be rusty.

塞拉斯（Sellars）没有一个无所不知的评论员站在行动外面，而是将叙述委托给俄狄浦斯的女儿安提戈涅（Antigone）（Stentorian女演员Breezy Leigh），然后这一决定导致了该计划的简短但出色的下半场。

Here the “Symphony of Psalms,” Stravinsky’s arch choral setting of three Old Testament settings, is grafted onto “Oedipus at Colonus,” Sophocles’ final masterpiece in which the old protagonist — blinded, broken, a beggar accompanied in his wandering by his two daughters (Leigh as Antigone and dancer Laurel Jenkins as Ismene) — finds his way to death in redemptive grace.

将Sophocles和Psalms的单词结合在无缝编织中是一个有力的灵感，尽管“诗篇交响乐”从来都不是一项舞台作品，但这三个流放的最终景象非常适合它。由安德鲁·惠特菲尔德（Andrew Whitfield）领导的交响曲合唱团的美丽歌唱只帮助了前提。

This triumphant offering is the first of四个年度合作计划为塞拉斯和沙龙，包括Olivier Messiaen，Kaija Saariaho和LeosJanácek的作品。如果有任何形式的迹象，那么在未来几年中，我们有很多期待。

旧金山交响乐：7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 11; 2 p.m. Sunday, June 12. $35-$125. Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave., S.F. 415-864-6000.www.sfsymphony.org