# Cherubini Medea: Only a Vehicle for Callas?



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Medea was one of Callas' most iconic roles, but I can't remember it being a part of the commonly performed operas since then. Was it only good because Maria breathed life into it? It certalinly doesn't blow me away like Norma or even Orfeo do.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

I've never heard it, but I do believe there's another recording of it starring Eileen Farrell(?). I'm sort of interested in hearing the work, if only to hear if there's anything in it that foreshadows NORMA.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Farrell would be worth hearing and yes she did record it.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Farrell would be worth hearing and yes she did record it.


And very good it is,I've always had a high regard for Ms. Farrell.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

There are quite a few singers that have tackled the role of Medea, after Callas. Recently, Anna Caterina Antonacci and Nadja Michael. Today, it's more usual to sing the opera in French, than in Italian.


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## kangxi (Jan 24, 2014)

Medea is a wonderful opera - I listened to it only a few days ago (and yes, it's the Callas version). Look at the Cherubini thread in the composer's forum for more favourable opinions about this neglected & under-rated composer.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Though none of them ever made the impact in the role Callas did.

I'm pretty sure Eileen Farrell only recorded excerpts, though she did sing the role complete in concert at Carnegie Hall.

I know of two studio recordings apart from Callas. Gwyneth Jones (recorded for Decca early in her career) and Sylvia Sass (for Hungaraton), both conducted by Lamberto Gardelli. Of the two, Sass is better, though even she can't breathe life into it the role the way Callas did.

Callas's studio recording (made in 1957 not by EMI, but by Ricordi) and conducted by Serafin is not her best recording of the piece.

There are five known live recordings of her singing it, from Florence in 1953 (Gui), La Scala in 1953 (Bernstein), Dallas in 1958 (Rescigno), Covent Garden in 1959 (also Rescigno) and La Scala in 1961 (Schippers). Of these the 1953 La Scala and Dallas 1958 are the ones to hear.

The opera heard here (and in the two other commercial recordings I mentioned) is a hybrid. Cherubini wrote it to a French libretto, with spoken dialogue. All the above versions use an Italian translation of a German version with orchestral recitatives composed by Franz Lachner, and each of the above conductors prepared their own edition of the score, making different cuts, which explains why we hear different bits of the score in all of Callas's versions except the two Rescgino versions, which are identical in terms of edition, though Callas is in much better form in Dallas.

Callas's identification with the role was complete from day one, and neither Jones nor Sass come within a mile of her achievement; the opera emerges as somewhat dull, a criticism that could never be leveled at any of the Callas versions. Her impact in the role was enormous, and acclaim for her in this role of all her roles was pretty unanimous, which wasn't always the case with Callas. After Norma, Traviata, Lucia and Tosca, she performed it more than any other, quite incredible when you think it was never a repertory piece.

What we need of course is a recording of the original score, what Cherubini actually wrote, with the opera in French and with spoken dialogue. Who should sing Medea I have no idea. I heard Antonacci sing Medea's Act I aria in concert with Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment a year or so ago, and found the performance rather small, both as to voice _and_ personality. Perhaps Joyce DiDonato could have a stab at it, though the _tessitura_ might be a little too high for.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

We can hear in youtube both Gencer and Olivero:




















This is the recent Médée with Nadja Michael, though the dialogues were rewritten by the stage director, Krzysztof Warlikowski.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Unfortunately it is true that Ms. Farrell only recorded highlights from "Medea", what a lost opportunity.
She had a huge voice and is the only opera singer who could successfully sing jazz and blues that I've come across.
She tended not to take herself too seriously and this annoyed some of the powers .


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

I'm sure that when Brahms claimed Medea to be a peak of dramatic music, it was only because he heard Callas perform it. With all respect to Callas, it would take really extreme Callas-hooligan to make ridiculous claim that she was capable of making otherwise no good opera sound attractive solely by the strenghts of her dramatic skills. It's just impossible, for her or any other singer. Medea is outstanding opera with some great music and while it takes extraordinary singer to give it full justice, it doesn't mean that it's mere "vehicle" for one and the only.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

schigolch said:


> We can hear in youtube both Gencer and Olivero:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Must say, I don't much like the look of the DVD, though I suppose I could be surprised 

From the brief snatches of the two links you posted, Olivero impressed me rather more than Gencer, but I'd have to listen at greater length for a fuller picture. Olivero's voice, despite its inherent quick vibrato sounds more compact, more focused, whereas Gencer vibrates the voice more than Callas even. In fact, Callas scaled her vibrato back quite a bit in this classical role, and, in those earlier recordings under Bernstein and Gui, the top of her voice is rock solid. (One shouldn't of course confuse vibato with wobble as so many do.) Even in Dallas in 1958, though the voice is a slimmer instrument than it was in Florence and Milan in 1953, it is surprisingly secure compared to what it could be at this stage in her career. The performance was recorded just after Bing had sacked her from the Met, and some say she was so furious this galvanised her into one of her most thrilling performances, the fury she evinces leveled as much at Bing as it was at Giasone.


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## kangxi (Jan 24, 2014)

Whoops! I slightly mis-led you - there are actually 2 threads about Cherubini but they're both in the General Discussion forum. The first is here, where you can pick up some good recommendations for Medea versions:
http://www.talkclassical.com/29045-two-luigis.html

The second thread is here.
http://www.talkclassical.com/22281-cherubini-forgotten-master.html
It's worth reading by Medea fans because a member called Moody informs us that scientists have recovered the last section of Medea (Cherubini had inked it out following criticism that the opera was too long). Cherubini fans are keen for the first recording to emerge.

Anyway, the consensus over both thread is that Cherubini is a very good composer and that he is under-rated and largely neglected. And I dare say that the reason he was listened to at all in the last century was because Callas championed him.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I don't like the DVD or Ms. Michael's performance myself, but it's there for anyone interested to watch it. 

Recently, Violeta Urmana sang the role in Valencia, and in Italian, with some success.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I'm just surprised that with a juicy story such as Medea of antiquity, that it has not seen more attention such as Alcest, Orfeo, or Iphegenie en Tauride from the same period. Callas seemed to have put it on the map...in an atlas and then put the book on a shelf collecting dust.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Well, based on the myth of Medea there are several operas, from the 17th century to the 21st. Before Callas, and in the 20the century, Ester Mazzoleni was very celebrated as Medea.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

And Pasta, the singer to whom Callas is usually most closely compared, did sing Medea, but not in the Cherubini opera, in Mayr's *Medea in Corinto*.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I do like "Medea in Corinto". Perhaps even more than Cherubini's "Medea". Unfortunately, this was never sung by Callas, though there is a recording with Gencer, and a beautiful one by Opera Rara, except by one small detail. It was given recently in Munich, again with the busy Nadja Michael in the starring role.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

GregMitchell: Of these the 1953 La Scala and Dallas 1958 are the ones to hear.















I'll get them; wanting to hear the best possible case that can be made for that role.

Wonderful exegesis.

;D


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I'm just surprised that with a juicy story such as Medea of antiquity, that it has not seen more attention such as Alcest, Orfeo, or Iphegenie en Tauride from the same period. Callas seemed to have put it on the map...in an atlas and then put the book on a shelf collecting dust.


Juicy story, indeed (no snort smiley, or I would have inserted it here.)

In one film version, A Dream of Passion (1978; Jules Dassin. Melina Mercouri; Ellen Burstyn) which I saw in a theater, by the end, the entire audience were stone silent, grim faced, and remained speechless while exiting the theater, through the lobby, and once outside were probably for some minutes still speechless while on the street.

The story is one without any of the expected catharsis which has us 'loving' the tragic. In this, it is similar to Poulenc's Dialogue of the Carmelites, another opera which cuts to the bone and offers no relief.

Since it offers none of that bifurcated thrill of tragedy and catharsis is one fundamental reason (difficulty of executing the roles aside) it is not going to show up on programs as regularly as those operas which make everyone love to cry 

*"Mother kills husband, then her two children." ~ Film at eleven.*


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Juicy story, indeed (no snort smiley, or I would have inserted it here.)
> 
> Since it offers none of that bifurcated thrill of tragedy and catharsis is one fundamental reason (difficulty of executing the roles aside) it is not going to show up on programs as regularly as those operas which make everyone love to cry


I have to admit I've always had a certain amount of sympathy for Medea, not just in the opera, but, I remember also, when I saw Diana Rigg in the role some years ago now here in London. Surely Jason is the real baddy of the piece. He uses Medea to get what he wants (the Golden Fleece), makes her leave her home land, beds her, is the father of her two children, then unceremoniously dumps her when the prospect of marriage to the daughter of an influential ruler (Creon) presents itself. Given what she did to help him escape from her pursuing father (killing her brother and flinging the dismembered pieces of his corpse behind them to halt her father's pursuit), he might have expected she wouldn't have taken his abandonment lying down. Killing one's own children might well be considered taking revenge a little too far, but remember too that these very same children would be subjected to a life of slavery, as the illegitimate children of a member of the royal household.

Maybe one of the reasons Callas made the role more palatable was that, from the outset, it was clear she had come to Corinth for one reason alone. Not for revenge, but because she loved Jason, and in the hope that she could get him to change his mind. Revenge is the final resort.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

A few operas based on the classical tale of Medea:

Médée (1693) by Marc-Antoine Charpentier: 




Medea (1775) by Georg Benda: 




Medea (1843) by Giovanni Pacini: 




Médée, (1938), by Darius Milhaud: 




Medeamaterial (1992) by Pascal Dusapin: 




Medea (2010) by Aribert Reimann:


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