Oedipus explains the riddle of the Sphinx, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, c. 1805

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Oedipus (US  /ˈɛdɨpəs/ or UK /ˈiːdɨpəs/; Ancient Greek: Οἰδίπους Oidípous meaning "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family. This legend has been retold in many versions, and was used by Sigmund Freud to name the Oedipus complex.

Basics of the myth[link]

There are many different versions of the legend of Oedipus due to its oral tradition. Significant variations on the legend of Oedipus are mentioned in fragments by several ancient Greek poets including Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Aeschylus and Euripides. However, the most popular version of the legend comes from the set of Theban plays by Sophocles: Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone.

Oedipus was the son of Laius and Jocasta, king and queen of Thebes.

After having been married some time without children, Laius consulted the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. The Oracle prophesied that any son born to Laius would kill him. In an attempt to prevent this prophecy's fulfillment, when Jocasta indeed bore a son, Laius had his ankles pinned together so that he could not crawl; Jocasta then gave the boy to a servant to abandon ("expose") on the nearby mountain. However, rather than leave the child to die of exposure, as Laius intended, the sympathetic servant passed the baby onto a shepherd from Corinth and then to another shepherd.

Oedipus the infant eventually came to the house of Polybus, king of Corinth and his queen, Merope, who adopted him as they were without children of their own. Little Oedipus/Oidipous was named after the swelling from the injuries to his feet and ankles. The word oedema (British English) or edema (American English) is from this same Greek word for swelling: οἴδημα, or oedēma.

After many years of being son of the king and queen of Corinth, Oedipus was told by a drunk that Oedipus was in fact adopted by them. Oedipus confronted his parents with the news, but they denied every word. Oedipus sent word for the same Oracle in Delphi his birth parents consulted. The Oracle didn't tell him he was son of the king and queen of Thebes, but instead informed him he was destined to murder his father and marry his mother. In his attempt to avoid the fate predicted by the Oracle, he decided to not return home to Corinth. Oedipus decided to travel all the way to Thebes, as it was near Delphi.

As Oedipus traveled, he came to Davlia, where three roads crossed each other. Here he encountered a chariot driven by his birth-father, King Laius. They fought over who had the right to go first and Oedipus killed Laius in self defense, unwittingly fulfilling part of the prophecy. The only witness of the King's death was a slave who fled from a caravan of slaves also traveling on the road at the time.

Continuing his journey to Thebes, Oedipus encountered a Sphinx, who would stop all travelers to Thebes and ask them a riddle. If the travelers were unable to answer her correctly, they would be killed and eaten; if they were successful, they would be free to continue on their journey. The riddle was: "What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three at night?". Oedipus answered: "Man: as an infant, he crawls on all fours; as an adult, he walks on two legs and; in old age, he uses a 'walking' stick". Oedipus was the first to answer the riddle correctly and, having heard Oedipus' answer, the Sphinx was astounded and inexplicably killed herself by throwing herself into the sea, freeing Thebes from her harsh rule.

The people of Thebes gratefully appointed Oedipus as their king and gave him the recently widowed Queen Jocasta's hand in marriage. The marriage of Oedipus to Jocasta fulfilled the rest of the prophecy. Oedipus and Jocasta had four children: two sons, Eteocles and Polynices (see Seven Against Thebes), and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene.

Many years after the marriage of Oedipus and Jocasta, a plague of infertility struck the city of Thebes; crops no longer grew on the fields and women did not bear children. Oedipus, in his hubris, asserted that he would end the pestilence. He sent Creon, Jocasta's brother, to the Oracle at Delphi, seeking guidance. When Creon returned, Oedipus heard that the murderer of the former King Laius must be found and either be killed or exiled. Creon also suggested that they try to find the blind prophet, Tiresias. In a search for the identity of the killer, Oedipus followed Creon's suggestion and sent for Tiresias, who warned him not to seek Laius' killer. In a heated exchange, Tiresias was provoked into exposing Oedipus himself as the killer, and the fact that Oedipus was living in shame because he did not know who his true parents were. Oedipus angrily blamed Creon for the false accusations, and the two proceeded to argue fervently. Jocasta entered and tried to calm Oedipus by telling him the story of her first-born son and his supposed death. Oedipus became nervous as he realized that he may have murdered Laius and so brought about the plague. Suddenly, a messenger arrived from Corinth with the news that King Polybus had died. Oedipus was relieved concerning the prophecy for it could no longer be fulfilled if Polybus, whom he considered his birth father, was now dead.

Still, he knew that his mother was still alive and refused to attend the funeral at Corinth. To ease the tension, the messenger then said that Oedipus was, in fact, adopted. Jocasta, finally realizing that he was her son, begged him to stop his search for Laius' murderer. Oedipus misunderstood the motivation of her pleas, thinking that she was ashamed of him because he might have been born of a slave. Jocasta then went into the palace where she hanged herself. Oedipus sought verification of the messenger's story from the very same herdsman who was supposed to have left Oedipus to die as a baby. From the herdsman, Oedipus learned that the infant raised as the adopted son of Polybus and Merope was the son of Laius and Jocasta. Thus, Oedipus finally realized in great agony that so many years ago, at the place where the three roads met, he had killed his own father, King Laius, and subsequently married his mother, Jocasta.

Events after the revelation depend on the source. In Sophocles' plays, Oedipus went in search of Jocasta and found she had killed herself. Using the pin from a brooch he took off Jocasta's gown, Oedipus stabbed his own eyes out, and was then exiled. His daughter Antigone acted as his guide as he wandered blindly through the country, finally perishing at Colonus after being placed under the protection of Athens by King Theseus. However, in Euripides' plays on the subject, Jocasta did not kill herself upon learning of Oedipus' birth, and Oedipus was blinded by a servant of Laius. And the blinding of Oedipus does not appear in sources earlier than Aeschylus. Some older sources of the myth, including Homer, state that Oedipus continued to rule Thebes after the revelations and after Jocasta's death.

Oedipus' two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, arranged to share the kingdom, each taking an alternating one-year reign. However, Eteocles refused to cede his throne after his year as king. Polynices brought in an army to oust Eteocles from his position and a battle ensued. At the end of the battle the brothers killed each other after which Jocasta's brother, Creon, took the throne. He decided that Polynices was a "traitor," and should not be given burial rites. Defying this edict, Antigone attempted to bury her brother. In Sophocles' Antigone, Creon had her buried in a rock cavern for defying him, whereupon she hanged herself. However, in Euripides' lost version of the story, it appears that Antigone survives.

5th century BC[link]

Lekythos

Oedipus slaying the sphinx
Material	Pottery, gold
Created	420BC-400BC
Period/culture	Attic
Place	Polis-tis-Chrysokhou, tomb, Athens
Present location	Room 72, British Museum
Identification	1887,0801.46

Most writing on Oedipus comes from the 5th century BC, though the stories deal mostly with Oedipus' downfall. Various details appeared on how Oedipus rose to power.

Laius heard of a prophecy that his son will kill him.^[1] Fearing the prophecy, Laius pierces Oedipus' feet and leaves him out to die, but a herdsman finds him and takes him away from Thebes.^[2] Oedipus, not knowing he was adopted, leaves home in fear of the same prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother.^[3] Laius, meanwhile, ventures out to find a solution to the Sphinx's riddle.^[4] As prophesied, Oedipus crossed paths with Laius and this leads to a fight where Oedipus slays Laius and most of his guards.^[5] Oedipus then defeats the Sphinx by solving a mysterious riddle to become king.^[6] He marries the widow queen Jocasta not knowing she is his mother. A plague falls on the people of Thebes. Upon discovery of the truth, Oedipus blinds himself and Jocasta hangs herself.^[7] After Oedipus is no longer king, Oedipus' sons kill each other.

Some differences with older stories emerge. The curse of the Oedipus' sons is expanded backward to include Oedipus and his father, Laius. Oedipus now steps down from the throne instead of dying in battle. Additionally, rather than his children being by a second wife, Oedipus' children are now by Jocasta.

Pindar's Second Olympian Ode[link]

In the Second Olympians Ode Pindar wrote: Laius' tragic son, crossing his father's path, killed him and fulfilled the oracle spoken of old at Pytho. And sharp-eyed Erinys saw and slew his warlike children at each other's hands. Yet Thersandros survived fallen Polyneikes and won honor in youthful contests and the brunt of war, a scion of aid to the house of Adrastos..^[8]

Aeschylus' Oedipus trilogy[link]

In 467 BC the Athenian playwright, Aeschylus, is known to have presented an entire trilogy based upon the Oedipus myth, winning the first prize at the City Dionysia. The First play was Laius, the second was Oedipus, and the third was Seven against Thebes. Only the third play survives, in which Oedipus' sons Eteocles and Polynices kill each other warring over the throne. Much like his Oresteia, this trilogy would have detailed the tribulations of a House over three successive generations. The satyr play that followed the trilogy was called the Sphinx.

[edit] Sophocles' Oedipus the King

As Sophocles' Oedipus the King begins, the people of Thebes are begging the king for help, begging him to discover the cause of the plague. Oedipus stands before them and swears to find the root of their suffering and to end it. Just then, Creon returns to Thebes from a visit to the oracle. Apollo has made it known that Thebes is harboring a terrible abomination and that the plague will only be lifted when the true murderer of old King Laius is discovered and punished for his crime. Oedipus swears to do this, not realizing of course that he himself is the abomination that he has sworn to exorcise. The stark truth emerges slowly over the course of the play, as Oedipus clashes with the blind seer Tiresias, who senses the truth. Oedipus remains in strict denial, though, becoming convinced that Tiresias is somehow plotting with Creon to usurp the throne.

Realization begins to slowly dawn in Scene II of the play when Jocasta mentions out of hand that Laius was slain at a place where three roads meet. This stirs something in Oedipus' memory and he suddenly remembers the men that he fought and killed one day long ago at a place where three roads met. He realizes, horrified, that he might be the man he's seeking. One household servant survived the attack and now lives out his old age in a frontier district of Thebes. Oedipus sends immediately for the man to either confirm or deny his guilt. At the very worst, though, he expects to find himself to be the unsuspecting murderer of a man unknown to him. The truth has not yet been made clear.

The moment of epiphany comes late in the play. At the beginning of Scene III, Oedipus is still waiting for the servant to be brought into the city, when a messenger arrives from Corinth to declare the King Polybus is dead. Oedipus, when he hears this news is overwhelmed with relief, because he believed that Polybus was the father whom the oracle had destined him to murder, and he momentarily believes himself to have escaped fate. He tells this all to the present company, including the messenger, but the messenger knows that it is not true. He is the man who found Oedipus as a baby in the pass of Kithairon and gave him to King Polybus to raise. He reveals, furthermore that the servant who is being brought to the city as they speak is the very same man who took Oedipus up into the mountains as a baby. Jocasta realizes now all that has happened. She begs Oedipus not to pursue the matter further. He refuses, and she withdraws into the palace as the servant is arriving. The old man arrives, and it is clear at once that he knows everything. At the behest of Oedipus, he tells it all.

Overwhelmed with the knowledge of all his crimes, Oedipus rushes into the palace, where he finds his mother, his wife, dead by her own hand. Ripping a brooch from her dress, Oedipus blinds himself with it. Bleeding from the eyes, he begs Creon, who has just arrived on the scene, to exile him forever from Thebes. Creon agrees to this request, Oedipus begs to hold his two daughters Antigone and Ismene with his hands one more time to have their fill of tears and Creon out of pity sends the girls in to see Oedipus one more time.

[edit] Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus

Oedipus at Colonus

In Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus becomes a wanderer, pursued by Creon and his men. He finally finds refuge at the holy wilderness right outside of Athens, where it is said that Theseus took care of the two of them, Oedipus and his daughter, Antigone. Creon eventually catches up to Oedipus. He asks Oedipus to come back from Colonus to bless his son, Eteocles. Angry that his son did not love him enough to take care of him, he curses both Eteocles and his brother, condemning both to sudden deaths. Oedipus dies a peaceful death; his grave is said to be sacred to the gods.

[edit] Sophocles' Antigone

In Sophocles' Antigone, when Oedipus stepped down as king of Thebes, he gave the kingdom to his two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, both of whom agreed to alternate the throne every year. However, they showed no concern for their father, who cursed them for their negligence. After the first year, Eteocles refused to step down and Polynices attacked Thebes with his supporters (as portrayed in the Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus and the Phoenician Women by Euripides). Both brothers died in the battle. King Creon, who ascended to the throne of Thebes, decreed that Polynices was not to be buried. Antigone, Polynices' sister, defied the order, but was caught. Creon decreed that she was to be put into a stone box in the ground, this in spite of her betrothal to his son Haemon. Antigone's sister, Ismene, then declared she had aided Antigone and wanted the same fate, but Creon eventually declined executing her. The gods, through the blind prophet Tiresias, expressed their disapproval of Creon's decision, which convinced him to rescind his order, and he went to bury Polynices himself. However, Antigone had already hanged herself in her tomb, rather than suffering the slow death of being buried alive. When Creon arrived at the tomb where she had been interred, his son Haemon attacked him upon seeing the body of his deceased fiancée, but failing to kill Creon he killed himself. When Creon's wife, Eurydice, was informed of the death of Haemon, she too took her own life.

[edit] Euripides' Phoenissae, Chrysippus and Oedipus

In the beginning of Euripides' Phoenissae, Jocasta recalls the story of Oedipus. Generally, the play weaves together the plots of the Seven Against Thebes and Antigone. The play differs from the other tales in two major respects. First, it describes in detail why Laius and Oedipus had a feud: Laius ordered Oedipus out of the road so his chariot could pass, but proud Oedipus refused to move. Second, in the play Jocasta has not killed herself at the discovery of her incest - otherwise she could not play the prologue, for fathomable reasons - nor has Oedipus fled into exile, but they have stayed in Thebes only to delay their doom until the fatal duel of their sons/brothers/nephews Eteocles and Polynices: Jocasta commits suicide over the two men's dead bodies, and Antigone follows Oedipus into exile.

In Chrysippus, Euripides develops backstory on the curse: Laius' "sin" was to have kidnapped Chrysippus, Pelops' son, in order to violate him, and this caused the gods' revenge on all his family - boy-loving having been so far an exclusive of the gods themselves, unknown to mortals.

Euripides wrote also an "Oedipus", of which only a few fragments survive.^[9] The first line of the prologue recalled Laius' hubristic action of conceiving a son against Apollo's command. At some point in the action of the play, a character engaged in a lengthy and detailed description of the Sphinx and her riddle - preserved in five fragments from Oxyrhynchus, P.Oxy. 2459 (published by Eric Gardner Turner in 1962).^[10] The tragedy featured also many moral maxims on the theme of marriage, preserved in the Anthologion of Stobaeus. The most striking lines, however, state that in this play Oedipus was blinded by Laius' attendants, and that this happened before his identity as Laius' son had been discovered, therefore marking important differences with the Sophoclean treatment of the myth, which is now regarded as the 'standard' version. Many attempts have been made to reconstruct the plot of the play, but none of them is more than hypothetical, because of the scanty remains that survive from its text and of the total absence of ancient descriptions or résumés - though it has been suggested that a part of Hyginus' narration of the Oedipus myth might in fact derive from Euripides' play. Some echoes of the Euripidean Oedipus have been traced also in a scene of Seneca's Oedipus (see below), in which Oedipus himself describes to Jocasta his adventure with the Sphinx.^[11]

Other playrights[link]

At least three other 5th century authors who were younger than Sophocles wrote plays about Oedipus. These include Achaeus of Eretria, Nichomachus and the elder Xenocles.^[12]

Later additions[link]

The Bibliotheca, a Roman-era mythological handbook, writes down an actual riddle for the Sphinx while borrowing the poetry of Hesiod:

What is that which has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?^[13]

[edit] Later Addition to Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes

Due to the popularity of Sophocles's Antigone (c. 442 BC), the ending (lines 1005-78) of Seven against Thebes was added some fifty years after Aeschylus' death.^[14] Whereas the play (and the trilogy of which it is the last play) was meant to end with somber mourning for the dead brothers, the spurious ending features a herald announcing the prohibition against burying Polyneices, and Antigone's declaration that she will defy that edict

Oedipus in post-Classical literature[link]

Oedipus was a figure who was also used in the Latin literature of ancient Rome. Julius Caesar wrote a play on Oedipus, but it has not survived into modern times.^[15] Ovid included Oedipus in Metamorphoses, but only as the person who defeated the Sphinx. He makes no mention of Oedipus' troubled experiences with his father and mother. Seneca the Younger wrote his own play on the story of Oedipus in the first century AD. It differs in significant ways from the work of Sophocles.

Seneca's play on the myth was intended to be recited at private gatherings and not actually performed. It has however been successfully staged since the Renaissance. It was adapted by John Dryden in his very successful heroic drama Oedipus, licensed in 1678. The 1718 Oedipus was also the first play written by Voltaire. A version of Oedipus by Frank McGuinness was performed at the National Theatre in late 2008, starring Ralph Fiennes and Claire Higgins.

In 1960, Immanuel Velikovsky (1895–1979) published a book called Oedipus and Akhnaton which made a comparison between the stories of the legendary Greek figure, Oedipus, and the historic Egyptian King of Thebes, Akhnaton. The book is presented as a thesis that combines with Velikovsky's series Ages in Chaos, concluding through his revision of Egyptian history that the Greeks who wrote the tragedy of Oedipus may have penned it in likeness of the life and story of Akhnaton, because in the revision Akhnaton would have lived much closer to the time when the legend first surfaced in Greece, providing an historical basis for the story. Each of the major characters in the Greek story are identified with the people involved in Akhnaton's family and court, and some interesting parallels are drawn.

Oedipus or Oedipais?[link]

It has been suggested by some^[who?] that in the earliest Ur-myth of the hero, he was called Oedipais: "child of the swollen sea."^[16] He was so named because of the method by which his birth parents tried to abandon him—by placing him in a chest and tossing it into the ocean. The mythic topos of forsaking a child to the sea or a river is well attested, found (e.g.) in the myths of Perseus, Telephus, Dionysus, Romulus and Remus and Moses.^[17] Over the centuries, however, Oedipais seems to have been corrupted into the familiar Oedipus: "swollen foot." And it was this new name that might have inspired the addition of a bizarre element to the story of Oedipus' abandonment on Mt. Cithaeron. Exposure on a mountain was in fact a common method of child abandonment in Ancient Greece. The binding of baby Oedipus' ankles, however, is unique; it can thus be argued that the ankle-binding was inelegantly grafted onto the Oedipus myth simply to explain his new name.

The Oedipus complex[link]

Sigmund Freud used the name The Oedipus complex to explain the origin of certain neuroses in childhood. It is defined as a male child's unconscious desire for the exclusive love of his mother. This desire includes jealousy towards the father and the unconscious wish for that parent's death, as well as the unconscious desire for sexual intercourse with the mother. Oedipus himself, as portrayed in the myth, did not suffer from this neurosis – at least, not towards Jocasta, whom he only met as an adult (if anything, such feelings would have been directed at Merope – but there is no hint of that). Freud reasoned that the ancient Greek audience, which heard the story told or saw the plays based on it, did know that Oedipus was actually killing his father and marrying his mother; the story being continually told and played therefore reflected a preoccupation with the theme. ^[18]

The term oedipism is used in medicine for serious self inflicted eye injury, an extremely rare form of severe self-harm.

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oedipus

Greek mythology portal

• Antigone
• Epigoni
• Genetic attraction
• Myrrha (the Greek myth of incestual love between father and daughter)
• Oedipus at Colonus
• Oedipus Complex
• Oedipus the King
• Lille Stesichorus

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Brown, A.L. "The End of the Seven against Thebes" The Classical Quarterly 26.2 (1976) 206-19.
• Carloni, Glauco and Nobili, Daniela. La Mamma Cattiva: fenomenologia, antropologia e clinica del figlicidio (Rimini, 2004).
• Dallas, Ian, Oedipus and Dionysus, Freiburg Press, Granada 1991. ISBN 1-874216-02-9.
• Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths
• Lowry, Malcolm. Sursum Corda!: The Collected Letters of Malcolm Lowry (Toronto, 1995).
• Rotimi, Ola. The Gods are Not to Blame, Three Crown Books, Nigeria 1974.
• Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Oe'dipus"

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Regina Spektor
Regina Spektor playing an electronic piano in 2006
Background information
Native name	Реги́нa Ильи́нична Спе́ктор
Born	(1980-02-18) February 18, 1980 (age 32) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Origin	New York, U.S.
Genres	Anti-folk, indie rock, baroque pop, blues, pop
Occupations	Singer, songwriter, record producer
Instruments	Piano, vocals, guitar, bass guitar
Years active	1999–present
Labels	Sire/Warner Bros. Records
Associated acts	Sondre Lerche, Ben Folds, Kill Kenada, the Strokes, Dufus
Website	http://www.reginaspektor.com
Notable instruments
Steinway & Sons piano Epiphone Wildkat guitar Regina Spektor's Autograph

Regina Ilyinichna Spektor (Russian: Реги́нa Ильи́нична Спе́ктор, IPA: [rʲɪˈɡʲinə ˈspʲɛktər], English: /rɨˈdʒiːnə ˈspɛktər/; born February 18, 1980) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Her music is associated with the anti-folk scene centered in New York City's East Village.

Early life[link]

Spektor was born in Moscow, Soviet Union in 1980 to a musical Russian Jewish family. Her father, Ilya Spektor, is a photographer and amateur violinist. Her mother, Bella Spektor, was a music professor in a Soviet college of music and now teaches at a public elementary school in Mount Vernon, New York.^[1] She has a brother Barry (Bear), who was featured in track 7, "* * *", or "Whisper", of her 2004 album, Soviet Kitsch.

She learned how to play piano by practising on a Petrof upright that was given to her mother by her grandfather.^[2] She was also exposed to the music of rock and roll bands such as The Beatles, Queen, and The Moody Blues by her father, who obtained such recordings in Eastern Europe and traded cassettes with friends in the Soviet Union.^[1] The family left the Soviet Union in 1989, when Regina was nine and a half, during the period of Perestroika, when Soviet citizens were permitted to emigrate. Regina had to leave her piano behind.^[3] The seriousness of her piano studies led her parents to consider not leaving the USSR, but they finally decided to emigrate, due to the ethnic and political discrimination that Jews faced.^[4] Spektor is fluent in Russian and reads Hebrew, and has since paid tribute to her Russian heritage, quoting the poem February by the Russian poet Boris Pasternak in her song Après Moi, and stating “I’m very connected to the language and the culture.”^[5]

Traveling first to Austria and then Italy, the family was admitted to the United States as refugees with the assistance of HIAS (the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) and settled in The Bronx, where Spektor graduated from the SAR Academy, a Jewish day middle school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. She then attended high school for two years at the Frisch School, a yeshiva in Paramus, New Jersey, but transferred to a public school, Fair Lawn High School, in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, where she finished the last two years of her high school education.^[6]

Career[link]

In New York, Spektor studied classical piano with Sonia Vargas, a professor at the Manhattan School of Music, until she was 17; Spektor's father had met Vargas through her husband, violinist Samuel Marder.^[7] Although the family had been unable to bring their piano from Russia, Spektor found a piano on which to play in the basement of her synagogue, and also practiced on tabletops and other hard surfaces.

Spektor was originally interested only in classical music, but later became interested in hip hop, rock and punk as well.^[1] Although she had always made up songs around the house, Spektor first became interested in more formal songwriting during a visit to Israel with the Nesiya Institute in her teenage years when she attracted attention from the other children on the trip for the songs she made up while hiking and realized she had an aptitude for songwriting.^[4]

Following this trip, she was exposed to the work of Joni Mitchell, Ani DiFranco, and other singer-songwriters, which encouraged her belief that she could create her own songs.^[4] She wrote her first a cappella songs around the age of 16 and her first songs for voice and piano when she was nearly 18.^[1]

Spektor completed the four-year studio composition program of the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College within three years, graduating with honors in 2001. Around this time, she also worked briefly at a butterfly farm in Luck, Wisconsin,^[8] and studied in Tottenham, ( a suburb of London) for one semester ^[9].

She gradually achieved recognition through performances in the anti-folk scene in downtown New York City, often as a duo with drummer Anders Griffen, and most importantly at the East Village's Sidewalk Cafe, but also at the Living Room, Tonic, Fez, the Knitting Factory, and CB's Gallery.^{[citation needed]} She also performed at local colleges (such as Sarah Lawrence College) with other musicians, including the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. She sold self-published CDs at her performances during this period: 11:11 (2001) and Songs (2002). In 2004, she signed a contract with Warner Brothers' record label Sire Records to publish and distribute her third album Soviet Kitsch, originally self-released in 2003.

Spektor is married to Jack Dishel, guitarist with the band The Moldy Peaches.^[9]

Style[link]

Regina Spektor in concert, April 2007.

Spektor has said that she has created a great number of songs,^[10] but that she rarely writes any of them down. She has also stated that she never aspired to write songs herself, but songs seem to just flow to her.^[11] Spektor's songs are not usually autobiographical, but rather are based on scenarios and characters drawn from her imagination.^[4][12] Her songs show influences from folk,^[13][14] punk, rock, Jewish,^[12][15] Russian,^[12] hip hop,^[13][16][17] jazz,^[13][16] and classical music.^[12][16] Spektor has said that she works hard to ensure that each of her songs has its own musical style, rather than trying to develop a distinctive style for her music as a whole.^[11]

It doesn't feel natural for me to write some diary type song. I want to write a classic like Yesterday but weird songs about meatballs in refrigerators come into my head - I can't help it.^[18]

Spektor has a broad vocal range and uses the full extent of it. She also explores a variety of different and somewhat unorthodox vocal techniques, such as verses composed entirely of buzzing noises made with the lips and beatbox-style flourishes in the middle of ballads, and also makes use of such unusual musical techniques as using a drum stick to tap rhythms on the body of the piano or chair.^[4][19] Part of her style also results from the exaggeration of certain aspects of vocalization, most notably the glottal stop, which is prominent in the single "Fidelity". She also uses a strong New York accent on some words, which she has said is due to her love of New York and its culture.^[1]

Her lyrics are equally eclectic, often taking the form of abstract narratives or first-person character studies, similar to short stories or vignettes put to song.^[1][19] Spektor usually sings in English, though she sometimes includes a few words or verses of Latin, Russian, French, and other languages in her songs. She also plays with pronunciations, which she said on a NPR interview to be a remnant of her early years when she listened to pop in English without understanding the lyrics. Some of Spektor's lyrics include literary allusions,^[4] such as to F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in "Poor Little Rich Boy", The Little Prince in "Baobabs", Virginia Woolf and Margaret Atwood in "Paris", Ezra Pound and William Shakespeare in "Pound of Flesh", Shakespeare's Hamlet in "The Virgin Queen", Boris Pasternak in "Après Moi", Samson and Delilah in "Samson", and Oedipus the King in "Oedipus", Billie Holiday in "Lady" and Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome in "2.99 cent blues". She alludes to The Beatles and Paul McCartney in the song "Edit". She also used a line from Joni Mitchell's California in her song "The Devil Came to Bethlehem". Recurring themes and topics in Spektor's lyrics include love, death, religion (particularly Biblical and Jewish references), city life (particularly New York references), and certain key phrases have been known to recur in different songs by Spektor, such as references to gravediggers, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the name "Mary Ann". Spektor's use of satire is evident in "Wasteside," which refers to The Twelve Chairs, the classic satirical novel by the Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, and describes the town in which people are born, get their hair cut, and then are sent to the cemetery.

In Spektor's early albums, many of her tracks had a very dry vocal production, with very little reverb or delay added. However, Spektor's more recent albums, particularly Begin to Hope, have put more emphasis into song production and have relied more on traditional pop and rock instruments.^[3] Spektor says the records that most impact her are those of "bands whose music is really involved",^[20] specifically naming The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday, Radiohead, Tom Waits, and Frédéric Chopin as primary influences.^[20][21]

In her songs, "Eet", "Us" and "Après Moi" the titular sounds are used as the focal point throughout. (In "Dance Anthem of the 80's", the sound "eet" is also used often, on words such as "meat", "street", and "eat").

Performances[link]

Regina Spektor at her first performance in Tel Aviv, Israel on March 3, 2007

Spektor's first nationwide tour was accompanying The Strokes as the opening act on their 2003–2004 Room on Fire tour, during which she and the band performed and recorded "Modern Girls & Old Fashion Men". Kings of Leon were the second opening act on that tour, and they invited Regina to open for them on their own European tour right after The Strokes tour. In June 2005, Spektor was the opening act for the English piano rock band Keane on their North American tour, during which she performed at Radio City Music Hall on June 7, 2005.^[22] During her 2006 headlining tour in support of the Begin to Hope album, Spektor sold out a performance at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, and two shows at Town Hall Theater in New York City on September 27 and September 28, 2006.^[23]

Spektor has appeared on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien (once), Late Night with Conan O'Brien (three times), The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (twice), Jimmy Kimmel Live (twice), Last Call with Carson Daly (five times), Late Show with David Letterman (twice), Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (twice), CBS News Sunday Morning, Good Morning America (twice), Australia's Rove Live, and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (twice).^[24] On October 10, 2009 she performed on Saturday Night Live.

Since January 2005, Spektor has performed on a bright red Baldwin baby grand piano.^[25] At the present time she uses exclusively Steinway & Sons pianos. She plays a seafoam Epiphone Wildkat archtop hollow-body electric guitar.^[26]

Although she generally only performs original material, Spektor occasionally performs covers. Most famous of these covers were her performances of songs by Leonard Cohen and Madonna, for the 2nd Annual Jewish Music & Heritage Festival at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.^[4] In 2006 and 2007, Spektor embarked on a headlining tour of the U.S. and Europe, selling out numerous clubs and theaters. She covered John Lennon's "Real Love" at the performance arts center of her alma mater, State University of New York at Purchase, on March 28, 2007, at a benefit concert for the Conservatory of Music.^[27] In 2007, Spektor recorded "Real Love" for the Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur CD, which was released in June of that year. She recorded a version of the song for Triple J's Like a Version radio segment which was shown on jTV.

Regina Spektor performing in Brighton on October 26, 2006.

On March 8, 2007, Spektor appeared on the British ITV network's Loose Women, promoting and performing "Fidelity" live, and on April 20, 2007, she performed on the Late Show with David Letterman. On Saturday, April 28, 2007, she appeared at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. On Friday, May 18, 2007, she appeared on BBC1's Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. On June 16, 2007, she performed at the Bonnaroo Music Festival and later performed at the 2007 Lollapalooza on August 4, 2007 and Virgin Festival on August 5, 2007 in Baltimore, Maryland. On September 16, 2007, she performed at the Austin City Limits Music Festival and recorded a set for the Austin City Limits TV show the following day. She performed acoustic at the Bridge School Benefit at Shoreline Amphitheatre on October 27 and October 28, 2007.

On November 14, 2007, at her concert at Ryman Auditorium, in Nashville, it was announced that Spektor collapsed during the sound check and was taken to a local emergency room. According to the statement given to the audience, Spektor was fine, but doctors said that she could not perform that night. It was later reported that the cause of the collapse was an inner ear infection which caused intense vertigo. The show was initially rescheduled for December 6, 2007,^[28] but the date was once again rescheduled, and the concert finally occurred on February 29, 2008.^[29] After her initial collapse in Nashville, she was able to perform in concerts at Mountain Stage on November 18, 2007,^{[30][citation needed]} and at Duke University on November 19, 2007.^[31]

In conjunction with the release of her 2009 album Far, Spektor was headlining at Serpentine Sessions, a series of concerts London's Hyde Park on June 29, 2009. Other European performances in 2009 include Glastonbury Festival, Hultsfred Festival, Oxegen 2009, T in the Park, Paradiso (Amsterdam), Latitude Festival, and Rock Werchter. Spektor has invited Brooklyn-based rock band Jupiter One to open concerts on her 2009 North American tour. As a part of that tour, on October 14, 2009 Spektor headlined a concert at the Radio City Music Hall in NYC.

On July 7, 2010, Regina performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland.^[32] Her cellist, Dan Cho, drowned the day before while swimming in Lake Geneva near the Chillon Castle.^[33][34] She was described as distraught, shaken, and in tears and took several breaks to regain her composure.^[35]

Media coverage[link]

Spektor performing at the Hammerstein Ballroom on October 16, 2007

Regina Spektor performing in the West London Synagogue, February 2007.

Since 2005, Spektor's music has been used in various television programs and commercials. In late 2005 "Us" (from Soviet Kitsch) was used in a commercial as part of the What Do You Want To Watch? series for the United Kingdom's British Sky Broadcasting. The advert features a clip from a documentary on skateboarder Danny Way. In the summer of 2006, a clip from "Us" was used for the teaser website for Microsoft's Zune project at ComingZune.com, as well as for a promotional campaign for MtvU. The same track is used by Dutch telecom company KPN in a commercial. "Somedays" was used in a 2005 episode of CSI: NY and "Samson" was used in a 2006 episode of the same series. "On the Radio" was used in an episode of ABC's Grey's Anatomy. "Field Below" was used in a 2006 episode titled "The Last Word" of CBS's Criminal Minds. "Fidelity" has also been used in an episode of Grey's Anatomy titled "Six Days, Part 2", Veronica Mars titled "Wichita Linebacker", Brothers & Sisters titled "Sexual Politics", during the end credits of Love and Other Drugs, and in the Brazilian telenovela A Favorita. "Better" is currently being used in a commercial for XM Satellite Radio, an episode of "How I Met Your Mother", and the popular film My Sister's Keeper. Her song "Music Box" is currently being used in a commercial for JC Penney. Spektor also sang the title song "Little Boxes" of Showtime's television series Weeds in the episode "Mile Deep and a Foot Wide" (2006) and her "Ghost of Corporate Future" was used both at the beginning and end of the episode.^[36] On January 21, 2007, she was featured on CBS News Sunday Morning.^[11]

Spektor received increased attention in 2006 when her video for "Fidelity" was viewed over 200,000 times in two days on YouTube. On Sirius Radio's Left of Center channel, her single "Fidelity" was voted by listeners as the #1 song of 2006. Towards the end of 2006, VH1 showcased her as part of their "You Oughta Know: Artists on the Rise" featurettes: they played clips from the "Fidelity" music video and showed parts of an interview with Spektor during commercial breaks on the channel.^[37] Spektor's video for "Fidelity" reached #3 on VH1's Top 20 Countdown.^{[citation needed]}

Peter Gabriel recorded a version of "Après Moi" on his 2010 release Scratch My Back.

In Australia, Spektor's music has rapidly gained popularity in mainstream culture primarily due to Begin to Hope being played on the nation-wide radio station Triple J, where it eventually became a feature album. Prior to Begin to Hope, Spektor had only a small following in Australia in comparison to the US and Europe.

Spektor reached #33 on Blender magazine's top 100 of 2006 and was also listed as one of the "Hottest Women of...Rock!".^[38] "Fidelity" was also used in a 2007 television commercial in New Zealand advertising Yahoo!Xtra, a new partnership between Yahoo! and Telecom's Xtra ISP. Also in 2007, the mobile phone company Vodafone used her lyric, "Come into my world..." from the track, "Hotel Song" on Begin to Hope, in an extensive TV advertising campaign in the UK and Ireland.

On October 1, 2007, Spektor's new video for "Better" was released on VH1 and YouTube, where it was viewed more than 100,000 times within the first 24 hours. "Fidelity" was used in the trailer for the film 27 Dresses, released on October 3, 2007.^[39]

Her song "The Call" appeared prominently in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,^[40] as part of the film's finale sequence. Spektor's song "Better" was used in the movie My Sister's Keeper, loosely based on the novel of the same name by Jodi Picoult. A section of "That Time" was featured in the film In Bruges. Additionally, "Us" and "Hero" are both featured on the soundtrack for the film (500) Days of Summer. Spin magazine profiled Spektor in their July 2009 issue, where she discussed her just-released album Far. The story was released in their digital edition that month, as well.^[41] In August 2009, the song "Two Birds" was used in the 2009 Fall Campaign of the Polish TV station TVN. Also Regina's song "Eet" debuted on the show 90210 in April 2010.

On September 16, 2009, it was announced that Spektor would write the music for the musical Beauty, a modern adaptation of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, which is set to open during the 2011–12 Broadway season.^[42]

In May 2010, Spektor performed for President Obama and his wife Michelle along with hundreds of other guests at the White House reception in honor of Jewish Heritage Month. She sang "Us" and "The Sword & the Pen", receiving a standing ovation begun by Michelle Obama.

The song "Human of the Year" featured prominently in the trailer and first episode of the 2011 HBO series Enlightened.

The song "All the Rowboats" was featured on The CW's Ringer in March 2012.

The Song "Hotel Song" was featured in the opening of the movie Friends with Kids.

Philanthropy[link]

In 2007, she covered John Lennon's "Real Love" for Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur. The following year, she participated in Songs for Tibet, an initiative to support the human rights situation in Tibet and the 14th Dalai Lama. The album was issued on August 5, 2008, via iTunes and on August 19 in music stores around the world.^[43] On January 22, 2009, Spektor performed at the third annual Roe On The Rocks gig at the Bowery Ballroom to raise money for Planned Parenthood New York City.^[44] Also, continuing with her support for Tibet, Regina Spektor played for Tibet House's annual concert at Carnegie Hall on February 26, 2010. Less than one month later, on March 23, 2010, Spektor gave a concert at the Fillmore at Irving Plaza in New York City to raise funds for the work of Doctors Without Borders in Haiti. Also, on April 27, she released a cover of Radiohead's song "No Surprises" with all proceeds going to Doctors Without Borders to help the earthquake victims in Haiti and Chile.

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• 2001: 11:11
• 2002: Songs
• 2004: Soviet Kitsch
• 2006: Begin to Hope
• 2009: Far
• 2012: What We Saw from the Cheap Seats

Singles[link]

Awards[link]

• Begin to Hope – Shortlist Music Prize (nominated)
• Studio8's Female Voice of August 2009 (won)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Regina Spektor

• Official site
• Regina Spektor at the Internet Movie Database
• Regina Spektor at the Open Directory Project
• "Regina Spektor" interview by Noel Murray (from The A.V. Club, 21 June 2006)
• Interview from Soundcheck, WNYC, 13 September 2005
• Interview from All Things Considered, National Public Radio, 28 June 2006
• Strangers Almanac Column on Regina Spektor from Glide Magazine
• NPR - All Songs Considered 7/22/2009 - Regina Spektor: When Every Sound Sings
• NPR All Things Considered 5/24/2012 - Regina Spektor Still Doesn't Write Anything Down