Œdipe did not find its way to Romania until 1958, where it premiered three years after Enesco’s death.
Whilst Romanian folk motifs packed his early compositions, by the time he composed his only opera Œdipe, which premiered in Paris in 1936, his work was suffused in a late Romantic fusion of post-Wagnerian expressionism and impressionistic symbolism of the French composers around whom Enesco came of age, including Debussy, Fauré, and Ravel. Identified as a musical prodigy in early childhood, Enesco left Romania at age seven for Vienna to study at its Conservatory and then proceeded, at fourteen, to Paris, where he continued his studies and later taught, performed as a violinist and pianist, and composed. One might ask, however, whether Enesco, whose dates placed him on the cusp of cultural modernism, was more a “European” composer than a strictly Romanian one. Enesco (Enescu, as he was born) holds a place in his country’s cultural tradition so strong that he features on Romania’s national currency and gives his name to its leading philharmonia and national classical music festival. This season, the Paris Opéra opened with the seminal work of Romania’s national composer, Georges Enesco (1881-1955).
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