Reviewed by James
Karas
Toronto’s remarkable Opera Atelier has scored another remarkable
cultural event with its production of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Medea.
The opera was first performed in 1693 and the dynamic duo of Marshall
Pynkoski (director) and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg (choreographer) give us a production that captures the drama, choreographic
splendour and colour of the piece with astonishing success.
Médée is a killer role for a soprano. (Pynkoski uses the English version
of Medea
for the title but employees the French names for the characters and I am
following his example). Soprano Peggy Kriha Dye has all the equipment to tackle
the role and come out on top. Médée has enough faces to make your head spin.
She killed her father and her brother because she was in love with Jason and
she helped him steal the Golden Fleece. She is angry because he is about to
dump her for Princess Créuse. She is furious with King Creon because he is
throwing her out of Corinth where she has taken refuge, she is also a sorceress
who can call on the spirits of the underworld.
Colin Ainsworth (Jason) and Mireille Asselin (Créuse). Photo
by Bruce Zinger
Tenor Colin Ainsworth plays the perfidious Jason who is in love with
Ceruse, pretends to still love Médée and becomes the target of her furor and
lust for revenge. Ainsworth takes on the role with vocal and physical agility
and tries hard to beat the odds as Jason but he does not stand a chance.
Soprano Mireille Asselin is the basically nice Créuse who is in love
with Jason and must beg Médée to restore her father Creon’s reason after she
has driven him to insanity. That is a very dramatic scene as is her own death
from the poisonous gown provided by Médée. A fine performance all around.
Exceptional performances are turned in by bass-baritone Stephen Hegedus as
the dictatorial Creon who gets a going mad scene and baritone Jesse Blumberg as
Oronte, the man who is after Créuse.
Set Designer Gerard Gauci has created a number of backdrops and effects
from the monumental to the idyllic to the fiery to indicate the underworld.
As expected in French opera of the period there is generous use of
dancing and Ms Zingg has choreographed a number of sequences from the elegant
dance of the spirits, to dances of warriors, demons and phantoms.
Peggy Kriha Dye (centre) and Stephen Hegedus (front), with
Artists of Atelier Ballet. Photo by Bruce Zinger.
Medea has a rich and highly varied score that deals with all the
situations and moods mentioned above. The Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra under
David Fallis give a superb performance.
Medea has been quite popular with composers and there are more than
fifty operas based on the myth. The most famous treatment is perhaps Luigi
Cherubini’s Medea of 1797. The earliest treatment of the myth seems to be
Cavalli’s Giasone of 1649 and the most recent appears to be Gavin Bryars’ Medea
(1982).
Opera Atelier is taking this production of Medea to Versailles to show
them what Canadians can do. Too bad Canada is not funding more productions of
baroque operas. At two a year by Opera Atelier it is pretty pathetic but don’t
tell the French that. They probably think we have so many productions, we
actually export them.
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