Medea at the ENO

[+ Charlie]

Today's LA Times has a long article by Mark Swed about the state of opera in London, accompanied by photos of the production of Charpentier's "Medea," a 17th century opera about an ancient Greek myth, transposed to 1940 Europe. I happened to be at the same performance that he attended, and I can confirm that the production was as brilliant as he declares it. My oldest friend in London, a former singer who lives in Covent Garden, had already seen the production and insisted that I go, while he went that evening to the performance of George Benjamin's "Written on Skin" at the Royal Opera, which he said was equally stunning dramatically and musically. What impressed him even more was that it was sold out--a rarity for a contemporary opera--and the audience was filled with young people. Much as I love traditional productions of war horses, maybe what we need in this country is more innovative approaches (good ones, of course, not experimentation for experiment's sake), publicized aggressively, rather than endless tame Toscas and Bohemes.

[whipped guy]

When I saw this I thought of Cherubini's Medea... or possibly of Mayr's Medea in Corinto which is even more rarely performed. I never heard of the Marc Antoine Charpantier piece. Now that's a real rarity. However, it must have been quite interesting. I am sure there were many dance sequences interspersed among the traditional baroque style arias. Incidentally was it performed in the original French... or is ENO still performing everything in English translation? Your mention of Medea vs. Medee seems to imply English.

 

In any event, I noticed that the production was by David McVicar... a director whose concept was I am sure quite probing and thought provoking... and I'll bet was more interesting then another Boheme or Tosca.

[+ Charlie]

It was performed in English (with English surtitles!). As in most Baroque operas, there were many dance sequences, and the choreography was fabulous.