An opera is basically any play which has most or all of the lines sung. Oedipus Rex, the famous play written by Sophocles is indeed an opera although the date and circumstances around its production are largely undocumented. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex was a portion of a trilogy of plays the author wrote centered around one family. Scholars believe that Oedipus Rex was the middle play in the trilogy written by Sophocles around one family. This one exclusively featured one man, the king of Thebes, Oedipus.
The story begins twelve years before the play begins. The people of Thebes had just lost their king, Laius, to an unknown murderer and had then been accursed with a pestilence due to a murderous creature named Sphinx. Oedipus helps overcome the Sphinx by answering its riddle and by the time the play starts, Oedipus has already been crowned the King of Thebes in gratitude. Oedipus kingship had actually been affirmed by his marriage to the widowed queen Jocasta. That former success is then marred at the opening of the opera, since, again, the people of Thebes are now suffering from a deadly pestilence. They come to Oedipus for rescue just as he had done before. Oedipus, now the King, readily anticipates their need and therefore sends Creon, his brother-in-law (Jocasta’s brother), to Apollo’s house to seek for divine intervention.
When Creon returns he announces Apollo’s oracle that Thebes will only be well after Laius’ murderer is found and chased from the city. Oedipus thus sets forth to investigate the murderer of King Laius by first sending for Teiresias, the blind seer. He swears to find Laius’ killer and banish him or her forever. Herein, the Opera has a chorus of the people of Thebes reinforcing the suggestion that Oedipus should consult the prophetess Teiresias, which he accepts and confirms that he has already sent for her.
The storyline gets more complicated at this juncture. After a lot of persuasion and threats, Oedipus gets the prophetess to name the killer. She says that Oedipus himself is the murderer, which makes him outraged. He immediately denounces the accusation as Creon’s plot to attain the throne of Thebes. It is at this point that Queen Jocasta enters the stage to arbitrate between the two men, whereby she assures Oedipus that seers aren’t infallible. To illustrate the point, she uses an example of prophecy once given to her at the beginning of their marriage with Laius. According to her, the seer had prophesied that her own son would kill his father (her husband) and then bear children with his mother (herself). According to her, she had prevented the fulfillment of that prophecy by abandoning her infant son back in the mountains as soon as he was born. She justifies the fault of the prophecy by citing that Laius had been killed by robbers at a three-road junction while headed for Delphi, and not by his son.
Upon hearing this Oedipus becomes uneasy as he gradually recalls an incident in which he killed several men at that particular junction, one of them a man of Laius’ description. This happened after a scuffle with fellow travelers while he was running from his home. He had been running from Corinth to escape a similar prophecy. The third prophecy is that given by an aged messenger who was going to Corinth to announce King Polybus’s death. King Polybus was purported to be Oedipus then, and thus Oedipus is elected king of Corinth. He however declines the offer fearing the old prophecy and decides to run away from Corinth until his purported mother is dead too. In the opera, the chorus picks up on tempo, to predict the ultimate resolution of the plot.
Even the messenger’s assurance that he was not a blood son of King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth cannot calm his fears. He had been found by a farmer deserted in the arid mountains where his parents had abandoned him to die with a thorn through both ankles, and then given to the house of the king of Corinth. Again, the Oedipus Rex Opera raises tempo, for Oedipus statement had confirmed Jocasta’s claim of an abandoned son in the mountain. At the end of Oedipus Rex therefore, the ancient prophecy, in both the cities of Thebes and Corinth, are fulfilled to each of their dreadful details. Oedipus had killed his father and married his mother, with whom they had sired children. Jocasta can only but hang herself in horror as Oedipus takes up a dagger and stabs his eyes out. Thereafter, he imposes the exile penalty on himself just as he had promised upon finding Laius’ murderer. Creon, his uncle cum brother in law, takes the thrown of Thebes.