January 21 and 23 at the Kimmel Center

Leonard Bernstein famously called this opera-oratorio based on Sophocles’ tragedy the “most awesome” work of composer Igor Stravinsky’s neoclassical period. The drama tells of an entire family’s attempts to evade their inescapable, tragic fate. Music Director Corrado Rovaris leads the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra and Chorus with soloists William Burden, Rihanna Thelwell, and Mark S. Doss.

The performance of Oedipus Rex will be preceded by Lilacs, a setting of Walt Whitman’s poem, “When Lilacs Last in Dooryard Bloom’d,” an elegy to President Abraham Lincoln. Composed by George Walker, a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music (for Lilacs), the piece features rising soprano Tiffany Townsend as the soloist. 

Showings are Friday, January 21 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, January 23 at 2 p.m. at Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center located at 300 South Broad Street in Philadelphia. 

Purchase tickets online at https://www.kimmelculturalcampus.org/events-and-tickets/202122/opera/oedipus-rex–lilacs/.