Medea - by Charpentier

[motodraconis]

Medea summons her demons. (All pictures taken from the ENO flickr site.)


I've generally preferred jolly, bubbly operas, so going to see Medea, a baroque music opera (first premièred in Paris in 1693) was going out on a limb a bit, but I have resolved to see every opera dress rehearsal on offer which does not clash with work commitments, so Medea it was.

Initially, I was not grabbed by the piece. The music seemed weedy and quiet, and for the life of me I could not make out where the recitatives ended and the proper singing began. As wikipedia quotes regarding Charpentier he was "composing during that “transitory period” so important to the “evolution of musical language, where the modality of the ancients and the emerging tonal harmony coexisted and mutually enriched one another”

In other words, you're probably not going to be impressed by baroque music as anything other than background noise. There were no sweeping arias, no rousing choruses, no grand musical climaxes. Even when the action demanded drama, with Medea slashing her wrists to summon demons...



...or Creusa is burning to death in her poisoned gown...



...the music pottered along much as before when Jason and the King were burbling about inconsequential things in a is it a song or is it a recitative prolonged moment. Worthy stuff no doubt, but musically anaemic in both volume and composition. I was in the dress circle, and the full compliment of proper baroque instruments (I saw gigantic lutes) was not enough to carry adequately to where I was sitting. Had I been closer, perhaps I might have enjoyed the music more. Though to be fair, I kept hearing some sort of flutey, pipey music that I found rather agreeable - and leaning out to see the orchestra, I was aghast to realise that I was enjoying recorder music. Recorders! FUCKING RECORDERS! Recorders were literally an instrument of torture to me. As a child I was forced into taking evening classes in the descant and treble recorder, in the misguided belief that this would encourage me on the path of being a musical prodigy. If you ever want to ensure that your offspring grow up utterly unmusical, then send them to recorder lessons. Works a treat.* Anyway, that was a shocking moment for me.

Now, I had missed La Traviata due to work commitments, but I was told that the ENO had staged it with a chair as the only prop. Thus letting the music and voices carry all the power of the opera without cosmetic frills. Not an option for a staging of Medea, so (sensibly) the producers had pulled out all the stops to turn it into a visual feast, with an ingenious setting of 2nd World War costume, arresting sets - including a full sized aeroplane...



...and lots of dramatic dancing.**



...some of which got quite risqué.



As I was leaving, I overheard one viewer, complaining that the male lead - the heroic Jason, fresh from his conquest of the golden fleece - was rather portly and unattractively old, (harsh criticism considering the critic was himself portly and no spring chicken) and I confess that rather got to me too. You could believe that he was interested in the young princess, (an old bloke chasing after a young girl is nothing new) but it was rather difficult to imagine that she would give a rat's arse about him in return, - awkward when singing love duets and having her rebuffing the young and saucy male love rival of Orontes. (Though perhaps she sneered because he was the Prince of Argos.)

Thankfully when Medea starts to summon demons, the opera picked up considerably, and I began to enjoy it.



Demon chaps with deep voices, dressed in little black dresses and tottering about in heels. Awesome!

What surprised me the most, was that Medea came across as a sympathetic character, who makes good her escape seemingly without penalty. I mean (SPOILER!) she kills (or engineers) the horrible deaths of lots of people, including her own children.



I'd rather expected some sort of morality tale about the evil witch woman, heartless, cruel, and ultimately being punished somehow. And yet you end up rooting for her, she's treated abominably, and her reaction to this shoddy treatment makes sense. The fact that she has her revenge on characters deserving of it (cute kids excepted) and escapes made you leave the opera feeling rather pleased.

Or maybe that's just me... and I'm totally not getting the point of tragedy.








* If you must force your child to take up an instrument that they did not ask to learn and never wanted to learn, then at least force them to learn electric guitar. They'll thank you when they're a student and getting laid.

** Though it's a bit sad when the best compliment you can make of an opera is that you really liked the dancing. I will not be rushing out to buy the music.

Comments

[vampyresheep.livejournal.com]

It looks quite a visual spectacle but when it comes to the story of Medea, Baroque music is the last thing that comes to mind! It needs something more dramatic, surely.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

I can't say it worked for me musically, the lack of musical drama was really noticeable during the narratively dramatic points.
"She's summoning goddammed demons!" music wibbles away softly, exactly the same as the last hour. GAH!

That and the endless passages of declamation. Bloody harpsichords!

[vampyresheep.livejournal.com]

not dissimilar to the reviews I have read about it. Although reviews have generally been favourable it has been described as hit and miss.

Personally, I'm just not a fan of baroque music. Too "plinky plonky" for my taste!

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong, it was fun, and it didn't drag. But I wasn't enjoying it for the music. You could see why it's an opera that's sunk without trace. (This was the UK premiere!)

[calmllama.livejournal.com]

Did you find that the music made the story more difficult to follow? I have very little in the way of foreign languages. I've always found that I need the music of opera to convey the emotion of the words in order for me to follow the story properly. I can imagine it getting a little lost in translation with baroque music, or maybe I'm wrong?

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

That was precisely the problem! The music seemed so very flat and samey, with no emotion, no drama. It didn't help that it was pretty quiet and the singers seemed to have to sing softly to match. I might have enjoyed it more had I been closer.

They sang in English, so you could at least follow what was going on, but the music provided no cues.