Production, David Mcvicar; Set Designer, David Mcvicar; Costume Designer, Doey Lüthi; Lighting Designer, Paule Constable. Conductor, Carlo Rizzi. Cast: Medea, Sondra Radvanovsky; Glauce, Janai Brugger; Neris, Ekaterina Gubanova; Giasone, Matthew Polenzani; Creonte, Michele Pertusi
As far as I am aware I have never heard a note of Cherubini’s music. I even had to look his dates up – though I found I was broadly right in my surmise that he was late Classical/early Romantic (1760 – 1842). I must have come across his name when reading Berlioz’s Memoirs long ago too, since he features in them as a disagreeable, stick-in-the-mud Conservatoire head in Paris (where he spent the majority of his life) at loggerheads with Berlioz. He seems to have been around in Paris during the Revolution and managed to both have aristocratic patrons in the 1780’s, and be supported by Napoleon at a later date. So, obviously politically astute….He was also apparently much admired by Beethoven.
I was, therefore, looking forward to this screening, and, indeed, it was an absorbing evening. Medea really is a transitional work – more fluid and less formulaic than Gluck, but still with some classical structures and turns of phrase. As one of the Met presenters said Cherubini was born into the age of Mozart and Haydn and died in the age of Verdi and Wagner. The music could sometimes have come straight from Don Giovanni but at other times it is straining forward into Fidelio, Bellini and even beyond to early Wagner. It is rarely performed (though was a vehicle for Callas). The reason for that becomes obvious when you hear the work – it’s the demands the work makes on the title role. The range required of the person singing Medea is extraordinary – from full dramatic soprano top notes to the low notes you’d expect from a mezzo. This plus the fact that Medea is much the biggest role in the work means that, as the conductor said in an interval interview, unless you have a great Medea, don’t even contemplate putting on this work.
There are different ways in which this work could be presented by a director: go for classical Greek, maybe a modern drama on a tug-of-war between divorcing parents over the rights to see and care for their children – or set it at the time and place it was written, revolutionary France. The costumes in this production looked vaguely 1790s – was the intention that Medea was in revolt against the ancien regime (there were a few wigged figures around).? If this was the intention, it wasn’t really carried through in any further coherent detail. The basic set was three sides of the crumbling brick walls of Corinth, their gates here massive, tarnished gilt doors. with another inner space within this. A mirror set above that inner area gave some interesting effects in Act 3, particularly, but didn’t really seem to have any intrinsic connection with the drama. The curtain sometimes separating the outer layer of set from the inner seemed to flap about inconsequentially and open and shut, particularly in Act 3, more than was probably sensible. The fire seemed to be already raging at the beginning of Act 3 – I didn’t really understand why this was so. In short, it looked all in all like a typical Met set – chunky, pleasing on the eye but not in the end doing very much and could have been much pared back
I’ve never heard the various Callas recordings, so have no idea how she compares, but Sondra Radvanovsky seemed to me to fulfil all the requirements of the role, certainly vocally; she was stunning in the heights and depths. Maybe her acting strayed a little bit towards the melodramatic – but then, the whole role is framed in that way, so one can hardly criticise her for that. Fundamentally it was an amazing performance. Her helper, Neris, was warmly sung by Ekaterina Gubanova, and Matthew Polenzani made the most out of the not very pleasant character of Giasone. Glauce, Jason’s new wife., was the one slight disappointment – stolid on stage, with little acting above the crude, and acceptable but not overwhelming singing. The orchestra under Carlo Rizzi played vigorously and eloquently.
John's musical journey 