Reviews 2017
Reviews 2017
✭✭✭✭✭
by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, directed by Marshall Pynkoski
Opera Atelier, Elgin Theatre, Toronto
April 22-29, 2017;
Opéra Royal, Versailles, France
May 19-21, 2017
“The Height of Perfection”
In 2002 Opera Atelier became the first North American company to mount the Médée of Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1645-1704). It was a great success then, but OA’s present revival is even finer. The cast and corps de ballet have now been imbued with the ways of French baroque opera since OA’s production of Lully’s Persée in 2000. The confidence gained from this background was evident everywhere – in the impassioned singing and acting of the soloists, the refined dancing of the corps, and in the magnificent playing of the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.
The libretto to Médée by Thomas Corneille (1625-1709), brother of the famous Pierre, situates the legend of the semi-divine Medea within a court riven with intrigue and deception. Medea and Jason, driven from Thessaly because of Medea’s evil deeds, have found a safe haven in Corinth. There, however, Jason falls in love with Creusa (also known as Glauce) , the daughter of the king, Creon, who wishes for them to marry. As a rival to Jason, Corneille adds the character Oronte, a hero who has won victory in battle for Creon and expects to receive Creusa as his reward. Corneille thus situates both Medea and Creusa at the apex of a love triangle. The difference is that Jason loves whichever of the two women he is with, whereas Creusa spurns Oronte for Jason.
Finally Jason affirms to Medea that he now loves Creusa and will marry her. Following Euripides tragedy, Corneille has Medea kill Creusa by means of a poisoned gown and then take revenge on Jason by murdering her two children by him. But Corneille adds to her crimes by also having Medea first drive Creon mad.
Unlike the opera seria of the 18th century, Médée (1693) is not divided into a strict alternation of recitative and aria. Instead more slowly sung declamation replaces recitative which gradually can modulate into arioso before culminating in usually very short arias. Unlike opera seria, duets are not a rarity. Rather the sung lines of a dialogue can often entwine to become a duet or a trio before they disentangle again. All the OA singers have so mastered these different modes of singing that the transition from one to another comes across as completely natural. A special pleasure is how the voices so exquisitely blended in every one of the duets and trios.
Principals mezzo soprano Peggy Kriha Dye and tenor Colin Ainsworth give outstanding performances. The two who appeared opposite each other for OA in Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice in 2007 and in Lully’s Armide in 2012, have a palpable chemistry. Their individual energies are astonishing. Their combined energy is explosive. The couple’s words of love turning into words of recrimination have all the realism of any married couple under extreme pressure.
The voices of both singers have continued to mature. Ainsworth’s unusually high, pure tenor and Dye’s darker voice, scintillating with flecks of light, have both gained immensely in power and expressivity. Ainsworth’s beautifully floated high notes in his words of Jason’s love to Médée and to her rival Créuse contrast with the full-voiced forcefulness of his anger toward his opponents. Dye fully embodies Médée’s wide emotional arc from desolation and longing to rage and diabolical triumph in revenge. The highpoint of the opera and of Dye’s performance occurs in Act 3 when Médée, faced with Jason’s decision to wed Créuse, struggles within herself whether or not to unleash her magical powers of destruction in the longest aria of the work, “Quel prix de mon amour,” a struggle that Dye shows is nothing less than the battle within Médée between her humanity and her malign divinity.
As Créon, king of Corinth and father of Créuse, Stephen Hegedus displays his steady yet agile bituminous bass-baritone. Hegedus’ singing and acting of Créon’s onset of madness is electrifying. As Créuse, Mireille Asselin sings in her bright, deceptively fragile soprano, a voice perfectly suited to the flighty, devious princess Charpentier depicts. Asselin’s true power shines in Créuse’s death in Act 5 that is both moving and terrifying at once. As the heroic Oronte, Jesse Blumberg displayed a smooth, cultured baritone that never, however, attains the same high level of expressivity as did the other principals.
It is luxury casting to have Meghan Lindsay use her firm mezzo-soprano in her sensitive portrayal Nérine, Médée's confidante. Olivier Laquerre is in fine form vocally and dramatically as Arcas and later as La Vengeance. Tenor Christopher Enns is strong both as La Jalousie and as a Corinthian as is tenor Kevin Skelton as a second Corinthian. As Cléone, Créuse’s confidante Karine White has bright, rich soprano and makes Cléone’s announcement of the king’s madness and murder of Oronte especially effective.
Pynkoski adds a metatheatrical element to his direction in this new version. All the principals to express anger or frustration are given to using their hands to strike the stage floor, the uprights of the proscenium or, as with Médée, the folds of her gown. The overall impression is that the characters feel themselves trapped within the inevitably tragic story they are enacting. With Médée it seems that as a supremely powerful woman she bristles at the condescension shown her by the male characters.
The 28-member Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra includes two continuo groups placed on either side of the pit with the 18-member Tafelmusik Chamber Choir placed in an upper loge. Under conductor David Fallis the musicians produce a warm, vivid sound and revelled in the endless invention of Charpentier’s score. The audience may have attended for the chance to see a full production of an operatic rarity. However, because of the fervent advocacy of OA’s cast and creative team and because of the tremendous acclaim their work received, the audience surely left convinced that Charpentier’s Médée is not just not just a masterpiece of baroque opera, but of all opera in general. In May, after the performances in Toronto, OA tours Médée to the Théâtre Royal of Versailles. Médée is a key work in Opera Atelier’s repertory and it is thrilling to see how the company has raised this production to the height of perfection.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This is a version of the review that will appear later this year in Opera News.
Photos: (from top) Colin Ainsworth as Jason and Peggy Kriha Dye as Médée; Olivier Laquerre (centre) with Artists of the Atelier Ballet; Mireille Asselin as Créuse and Stephen Hegedus as Créon; Colin Ainsworth and Mireille Asselin. ©2017 Bruce Zinger.
For tickets, visit https://operaatelier.com.
2017-04-24
Médée