Medea in Corinto [2 DVDs]

That production of this opera is superb and revives the music quite grandly. Of course that does not increase the variety of voices that still are three sopranos, fours tenors and one bass, or rather bass-baritone. It does not change the fact that the music is post-Mozart and pre-Verdi, hence it has lost the Mozartian creativity and had not reached yet the Verdian power. But the show is absolutely and flabbergastingly great.

The setting as a two-storied structure is a good materialization of the extremely hierarchical Greek society of the time on any kind of criteria: ethnic, social, or whatever. Greeks were the top provided they were free. The stage director visualizes this fact regularly in the opera. At the very beginning two male slaves fight in front of Creon: one is killed and the other is executed after being crowned the winner. Then three slave women are just put to death on the stage. The Greek society of the time is an extremely blood-thirsty society and all slaves, prisoners or whoever is inferior is the natural target of their desire for blood and killing. They love killing nearly by essence. All along the opera such executions will be staged and realized. Egeo when freed by Medea will take Medea's knife and will kill one after the other his three bodyguards who had been imprisoned along with him.

This realistic and even gross depiction of this ancient society is strong, effective and to the point. Medea is not the only one who kills since all those who are members of the aristocracy can kill the way they want all those who are not, for anything they consider a fault or just for their pleasure. Killing is a game, which makes anyone who is not an aristocrat in this society easy and willy-nilly willing game.

The Women in the Chorus and Creusa are all red-headed which is absolutely surprising and the meaning is not clear since the two Cochians, Medea and Ismene are black-haired with a very light and dark tinge of red. We could have expected that redhaired-ness to be on the Colchian side, but it is even emphasized by the fact the Corinthian women of the chorus appear the second time all with long red gloves. The only meaning I can think of is that the Corinthians are identified as blood-lustful. Then the Colchian are far from that level of bloodthirst.

The choruses, males and females, vary a lot in costumes and identification. They are sailors, fishermen, soldiers, plain people of all sorts, both women and men. They are dressed most of the time in some kind of shade of grey and that brings the royal blue of Creusa, the black of Medea and Creon and the light beige of Jason out. Note in this line of visual signs that the two kids will be a boy and a girl, both around 13 or 14 and the boy will come with a red ball that Medea will have in her hands at the very end as a symbol of the kids, but dead by then.

The action is supplemented by some actors and probably dancers who do the handy work on the stage. But they are used dramatically too. One is an angel, with wings of course, and he will be some kind of Cupid at one time with a lyre and the other one in bright colors is a simple gigolo, or used as such, to mime the bed scene of the wedding, on stage of course, and the girl he mimed it with will be shot dead afterwards. Egeo's three bodyguards have plumed hats and multicolored suits. These extras are making scene shifts and prop-moving easy and they are used as mute dancers now and then.

Nothing is changed as for the action and meaning of the opera as it was composed by Mayr, though some short scenes were cut off between big scenes because they are not useful anymore as transitions. The Corinthians and Jason are depicted as totally untrustworthy: they do not have any faithfulness and do not respect their oaths and promises. Medea is shown as a primitive lady when she comes, wearing a grass-dress and plenty of shells and other decorative objects around her neck and long fake but probably sharp fingers like some female Freddy.

Medea is then a betrayed person, from beginning to end and she will get into an alliance with Egeo later on who was betrayed too, and is in this production quite young. The great number of chorus members and their dramatic use on the stage enables some important scenes to be massive as for their effects. The attempt by Egeo to abduct Creusa and his subsequent arrest is quite active and violent with several people, women and men, killed and displayed on the stage. The symbolic self-emasculation of the angel standing on the table between Medea and Jason when it is clear Jason, after some kind of hesitation, will not be regained by Medea is a marvelous invention but of course it does not make Jason hesitate as for marrying Creusa. The emasculation is for us.

Then the end is unavoidable. The children will have to die and a long scene sets them on the stage with their mother who feeds them, plays with them and yet sings all her suffering because of the task she has to perform.

The only real change of this opera is that the opening symphony (more than 8 minutes) is not performed. The opera starts straight away with the first four scenes. Then a black screen tells us that it is the end of the overture and then "Das ist der Anfang des Mythos. Wir haben es geschafft. Wir sind mitten im Geschehen." This is a clear distance-taking attitude about the myth since the producers cannot in any way ignore the total reevaluation Christa Wolf introduced in the myth itself quite a few years before.

And the fact that Egeo is brought onto the stage for the last scene with his gun pointed at Jason's head and Medea coming with the red ball that symbolizes the death of the children, completely dressed in white though she had been wearing a black dress all along after taking her grass-dress off, makes the last words of the opera a lot more powerful than they are by themselves: "che sanguinoso di!" Indeed. And there will be no dragon and no escape into the sky. We are promised some more violence int his supposedly democratic and philosophical society.

To conclude we will note that the two-storied stage contraption reminds us of the one used in Wien for the production of Reimann's Medea in 2010, the very same year. And the meaning was the same: a hierarchical society, though it was not shown as blood-thirsty as in this production.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Der heute fast gänzlich unbekannte Komponist Giovanni Simone Mayr war ein Musiker des Übergangs zwischen Mozart und Beethoven. Seine Musik erinnert stark an Mozart, ist organisch melodiös, fließend. Zu seiner Zeit war er oft gespielt mit seinen 60 Opern, gefeiert, geehrt, bevor er in der Versenkung verschwand. Bellini und Donizetti waren seine berühmtesten Schüler. In der Titelrolle der Medea machten Maria Malibran, Giuditta Pasta und zuletzt Maria Callas Furore.
Das Inszenierungskonzept von Hans Neuenfels könnte man resümierend, mit "Gesellschaftliche Gewalt unter dem Deckmantel des Schönen" charakterisieren. Das Thema Angst wird singschauspielerisch interaktionistisch ins Zentrum gerückt. Man sollte das beiliegende Heft lesen, um seine Assoziationen zu verstehen. Damit ist klar, es ist ein Regie-Theater Projekt, aber in seiner dramaturgischen Ausgestaltung sehr überzeugend.

Das Einheitsbühnenbild von Anna Viebrock aus kostümbildnerischen und baulichen Fragmenten und Versatzstücken - ein Teil für das Ganze Prinzip(Pars pro toto)- läßt die Handlung auf drei Zeitebenen präsent werden.

Singschauspielerisch ist dieses schlüssige Konzept auf gesamtem Ensembleniveau sehr gut umgesetzt.
Im Einzelnen sollen benannt werden, Elena Tsallapova als Creusa mit lyrisch schlank, blühendem Sopran. Alastair Miles singt einen soliden Creonte. Ramon Vargas singt einen tenoral,warm strömenden Giasone. Alek Shrader ist ein tenoral schlank lyrischer Egeo. Nadja Michael ist eine schauspielerisch überzeugende Medea,vom Stimmtypus eher ein Mezzo. In ihrem Stimm-Material ist offenbar ein gewisses Tremolo angelegt, die Stimme wirkt keinesfalls ausgesungen. Wenn man das Timbre mag, eine involvierend präsente Singschauspielerin.

Ivor Bolton dirigiert farbstark und überzeugend.

Insgesamt eine interessante Aufführung eines heute unbekannten Werkes, dessen bühnenbildnerische Umsetzung allerdings eher den am Regie-Theater Interessierten ansprechen dürfte. Allein von der Musik dürfte das Werk allerdings auf für Mozart-Freunde nicht uninteressant sein.