Medea [Doppel-CD]

The rewriting of the myth by Franz Grillparzer from which Aribert Reimann built his libretto is a modernization of the myth to make it believable, plausible and the changes are important.

It starts at the foot of the walls of Corinth with Medea burying her sorcery chest along with the Golden Fleece. Medea is singing alone a long dirge at her fate and Gora her nurse comes up to widen the commentary and tell us what this burying means. The contrast of the soprano and the mezzo-soprano is very effective in a music that unwraps its sentences like some ribbon in a wind, or maybe a little bit more than a wind. The music behind is just as much stirred by the tempest that is going on in Medea's head who tries to become a normal simple woman by burying her sorcery and hence depriving herself of her powers.

Gora tells us the story of the flight of Medea, Jason and the children after the death of Pelias in Iolcos. She is also in a way the accuser reminding Medea of her crimes or acts. Medea compares the burying of the chest to the burying of the past. She sounds completely cut off from reality thanks to the music, lighter, more erratic and more distant in the back. Her dream of a new life is shrilly contradicted by the music that introduces Jason who requires Medea to become a Greek woman and he gets Gora away since she reminds him of Colchis too much. Jason asserts his paternity on his children. He reminds her of how people look at her as a barbarian, and she feels betrayed in a way, already dispossessed by her impossibility to push aside her origin.

Kreon comes and greets Jason as a stranger but Jason defends himself. He has to answer some questions about his fleeing from his father's city. He defends himself against the accusation of being responsible for the death of Pelias. But he does not answer how he died. That's when Kreusa arrives singing vocalizes in the distance. She refuses to believe what is being said about Jason. She defends him and questions Medea who asserts she did not kill and then father and daughter turn to the kids. At once a rivalry appears between Kreusa who wants the kids and Medea who requires her motherhood to be respected.

Kreon invites Jason and the kids inside but not Medea. Kreusa intervenes and invites her. A duet comes then between Medea and Jason that brings the darkness of the past with the dragon, Medea's help for Jason and betrayal of her own father to steal the Golden Fleece. Kreusa calls for understanding to her father who authorizes her to be taken by Kreusa. But yet he maintains his decision to keep Medea out of the city because of the fear she inspires.

The musical interlude before the second act is dominated by percussions and wind instruments and it creates a very bleak and menacing atmosphere out of which Medea and Kreusa come a capella and then accompanied by single notes on the piano at first. Kreusa tries to teach Medea how to play music on a harp but Medea is unable to do it. When Jason arrives Medea tries to sing a song to him, on the advice from Kreuza to sing a song he likes. But he gets angry at her insistence. And when he accepts to listen, she is unable to play nor sing. Jason reminds the two ladies of the song Medea sang to charm the dragon and then accuses Medea to only carry hate and death in her flaming eyes. Jason rejects Medea because of her fiery and fierce eyes.

It's when the herald arrives with a request from the Amphictyons in Delphi. The fact that the herald is a countertenor gives to his intervention an unreal sound, a somewhat supernatural sound. He is of course speaking from afar, Delphi, from a higher court, the Amphictyons, and he brings a decision of this court and a sentence at the same time that cannot be refused because it is supposed to be the voice of the gods. That's when Jason, to defend himself, is going to charge Medea with the whole responsibility, and he uses the assassination of his own father by Pelias to appear innocent of any murder any way.

That's when the herald recalls the death of Pelias and charges Medea. She was called in to cure his sickness and she practiced a limited bleeding on him, but then apparently things went wrong and his bandages were ripped off and he bled to death. The herald is like speaking under shock in successive puffs of a few words stringing up the tale with the music joining the various pieces of the puzzle together. He finally gets some amplitude when he dictates the sentence of the court: Jason and Medea must be banished.

Kreon then puts Jason under his protection and he announces at the same time he is going to marry his daughter Kreusa to him, and Medea has till next morning to go away: she is banished, but not the children. Medea protests in an outstanding forceful self-defense that negates the accusation. She announces she is going but will be back for vengeance. The music at this moment is a real symphony of hate and discord that sounds so strong and powerful that we feel some mysterious hand behind the curse, banishment and vengeance. Her conclusion is final: "Gebt Raum!" "Get out of my way!"

The opening of the third act by Gora telling us about the absolute resolve of Medea to get even with the whole world is very grim. But it is when Kreon discovers Medea is the one who has the Golden Fleece. Medea comes and refuses to go if she cannot speak to her children. A change in music and tone brings a Medea in confrontation with Jason alone who is trying to charm Jason and maybe seduce him into giving her what she wants, hypnotizing him. The music is oriental-sounding and then shriller when she recalls Pelias' death to turn very somber and deep when she comes to the discovery of the dead body. She evokes love as her motivation and invites Jason to fly with her. When she asks for the children, he refuses and yields: she can get and take one away, but the children will have to choose themselves. And the decision of the children is negative.

Then she invokes demons and loses all control over herself. But she realizes she does not have any power without her chest. That's when Kreon, still looking for the Golden Fleece, brings the chest that was discovered buried on the beach. She exchanges the opening of the chest and the delivery of the Golden Fleece against the permission to have the children for a last visit. And after opening the chest she gets her powers back too. Gora then takes the bewitched present to Kreusa when the kids arrive. Then she expresses her intention not to let her children to a stranger and it is when the cataclysm hits Kreusa and the palace. The music at this moment is perfect for that kind of upside down din and disorder, when the children are discovered dead in their turn. Percussions, drums of all types and pitches are used to evoke this diabolical ending of the vengeance.

We can then move to the fourth act and conclusion of the opera. Jason and Medea meet in some wilderness, both banished and forever estranged one from the other. Jason tries to get her back to accompany him in his solitude by declaring his love anew but she rejects him and announces her decision to go to Delphi and bring the Golden Fleece back to where it belongs. The music during that whole scene is suspended in thin air, notes separated and not even echoing one another, out of phase, in total disarrayed disorder . The singing is just the same and we feel we have reached a higher level of suffering and resolve on Medea's side but also a deeper level of solitude and rejection on Jason's side. And the last word is just what the composer wants us to believe, that this story was all nothing but a dream. A very Shakespearian ending in line with Hamlet: "to sleep perchance to dream". But the story has really become a nightmare in our civilization and culture.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU