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Opera

More woe for Oedipus

Thebans, a new ENO opera by Frank McGuinness and Julian Anderson, is short on conviction – and interest

10 May 2014

9:00 AM

10 May 2014

9:00 AM

Thebans

English National Opera, in rep until 3 June

I had high hopes for Julian Anderson’s first opera, Thebans. Premièred at the Coliseum last Saturday, it promised to mark a departure from the trendiness of ENO’s recent commissions, Nico Muhly’s Two Boys, for example, or the dreadful Sunken Garden — in fact, ENO’s next season seems to reflect a company at last a little less enamoured of innovation for its own sake.

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