The basis of tragedy is the depiction of a powerful or happy hero or heroine brought to degradation or death. In Greek tragedy, the reason for this downfall is usually the hero’s sinful pride (hubris). Oedipus Rex is a classic example of this dictum, for Oedipus, King of Thebes, is revealed at the height of his power, arrogant and boasting, at the beginning of the action, and is hurled to the depths as the secrets of his past and the enormity of his crimes are slowly revealed.

The Narrator sets the scene, and comments on the action throughout the opera in the language of the audience. The rest of the text is in Latin. At the opening of the action the Narrator says of Oedipus, “At the moment of his birth a snare was laid for him – you will see the snare closing.”

The men of Thebes lament the plague which is destroying the people of the city, and they petition their king to help them, which he promises to do. Creon, whose sister Jocasta is Oedipus’ wife, enters from Delphi, where he has consulted the oracle. He announces that the late King Laius’ murderer still lives in Thebes unpunished, and this has caused the Gods to send the plague. Oedipus promises that he will find the murderer. He sends for Tiresias, the blind soothsayer, for help.

Tiresias, called by the Narrator ‘the fountain of truth,’ enters, but is strangely reluctant to answer the King’s questions. Taunted by Oedipus, however, the old man finally makes it clear that he will tell everything: the King’s assassin is himself a king! Furious at the implication behind these words, Oedipus accuses Creon and Tiresias of conspiring to oust him from the throne. Attracted by the quarrel, Queen Jocasta enters, and the chorus greets her.

Jocasta warns her husband and her brother against raising their voices in a quarrel while the city is stricken with plague. Oracles, she continues, often deceive; and points out that an oracle predicted that her former husband, Laius, would be killed by his own son, when, in fact, he was killed by robbers at the cross-roads between Daulia and Delphi. At these words Oedipus is filled with horror, and tells Jocasta that he, while on his way from Corinth to Thebes, killed a stranger at this very cross-road. Jocasta tries to reassure him with little effect.

A messenger steps forward to tell Oedipus that King Polybus, who raised Oedipus, is dead, and it has been revealed that Polybus was not his father, but had merely adopted Oedipus after he had been found abandoned as a baby on a mountain slope. The shepherd who found the baby corroborates this tale. Overwhelmed by what she has heard, Jocasta hastily leaves, but Oedipus thinks she is merely ashamed of her husband’s lowly birth. The messenger and the shepherd unite with the chorus, however, to accuse the King of the double crime of parricide and incest.

Faced with the evidence, Oedipus, with a quiet dignity, at last admits that this must be the truth. Bowed with the weight of his guilt, he disappears.

The messenger reappears to tell the fate of the stricken pair: Jocasta has hanged herself, and Oedipus has pierced his eyeballs with the golden pin she wore. As the chorus bewails Jocasta’s suicide, the broken King reappears, and the chorus gently bids the sightless man a last farewell.