Harry Peeters / Reviews

The festival's highlight is Stravinsky's "Oedipus Rex," for which a Western-and-Japanese team created an elaborate set, complete with a reflecting pool covering the stage to evoke a misty path blending East and West. The soprano Jessye Norman was cast in the lead role of Jocasta, the mother of the ancient Greek king Oedipus.

Seiji Ozawa led a monumental new “Oedipus Rex” at the fledgling Saito Kinen Festival in Matsumoto, Japan. Directed by Julie Taymor--she of masks, puppets and a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant--that production of Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio seems as close to definitive as the difficult work may allow.