The Coliseum
(sung in English, as Medea)
Médée – Sarah Connolly
Jason – Jeffrey Francis
Créon – Brindley Sherratt
Créuse – Katherine Manley
Oronte – Roderick Williams
Nérine – Rhian Lois
Cléone – Aolfe O’Sullivan
Arcas – Oliver Dunn
Corinthian/Jealousy – John McMunn
Italian Woman/Phantom II –
Sophie Junker
Corinthian/Argive – Jeremy Budd
Cupid’s captives – Aolfe O’Sullivan,
Sophie Junker, John McMunn
Sons of Médée and Jason –
Ewan Guthrie, Harry Collins
Sir David McVicar (director)
Bunny Christie (designs)
Paule Constable (lighting)
Lynne Page (choreography)
Chorus of the English
National Opera (chorus master: Jörn Andresen)
Orchestra of the English
National Opera
Christian Curnyn (conductor)
Médée was Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s sole work
written for the Académie Royale de Musique, the legacy of Lully’s operatic
monopoly having died hard. Though not a popular hit, unlike, say, Alcide and Didon, the theme of
Thomas Corneille’s libretto and Charpentier’s response thereto almost certainly
proving too much, too ‘immoral’ for many Parisian sensibilities, the opera
certainly proved a critical success upon its first performances in December
1693. Sébastien de Brossard, priest, music theorist, and composer, went so far
as to describe it as ‘the one opera without exception in which one can learn
those things most essential to good composition.’ Louis XIV, erstwhile avid
Lulliste, was impressed, complimenting Charpentier personally upon the opera,
whilst the king’s brother, Philippe, Duke of Orléans, ‘Monsieur’, and eldest
son, Louis, the Grand Dauphin, both attended several performances. Though
hailed by the critics on its first outing, Médée
seems to have received no further performances at the Paris Opéra after 1694.
Does it deserve better this
time? Yes, I have no doubt that, even if Rameau were unaware of it – the evidence
seems tantalisingly unclear – that it is nevertheless not only a fine tragedy
in its own right but, in retrospect, a crucial stepping stone on the
teleological path that takes us not only to Rameau but to Gluck, and thence of
course to Mozart, Berlioz, and Wagner. Alas, the cast was left to shoulder the
burden on its own on this occasions, receiving scant support from either the
pit or the staging. So whilst some excellent singing will doubtless have won a
few welcome converts to the cause of tragédie
lyrique, much of what was seen and a typically perverse conception of
so-called ‘period style’ from the conductor – do conductor and director ever
stop to consider how irreconcilable their stances are with each other? – will also
have had many wonder what the fuss was about. My enthusiasm for the work was
certainly not shared by a couple of friends to whom I later spoke; given the
circumstances, I cannot say that I blame them.
The lion’s share of the
responsibility should be lain at the door of Sir David McVicar. Taking up the
recent tendencies in his stagings and extending them, at times to the point of
absurdity, what we witnessed was a camp monstrosity, relocated to the 1940s for
no apparent reason, save to permit an endless display of military uniforms,
secretarial staff, and the dancing boys and girls within them. A point might
well have been made about war and wartime exigency, but it was not; the
updating seemed merely a matter of arbitrary ‘colour’. The nadir was perhaps
reached with the arrival on stage of a large pink aeroplane at the end of the
second act, whilst Cupid darted around as a nightclub singer, an unfortunate
reminiscence, even if unintentional, of the recent ENO Giulio Cesare.
Spectacle could perfectly well
have been harnessed to dramatic effect, just as it might have been in late
seventeenth-century France; however, it was not. I was put in mind of Wagner’s
furious accusation in Opera and Drama against
Meyerbeer; opera had degenerated into an ‘outrageously coloured,
historico-romantic, devilish-religious, sanctimonious-lascivious,
risqué-sacred, saucy-mysterious, sentimental-swindling, dramatic farrago’. The
only moments of real drama emerged as if by default, the endless comings and
goings on stage thinning out for a while, and Charpentier’s music just about
emerging on its own terms. When that happened, however, it did not last for
long, the brief moment of concentration upon Médée in the third act giving way
to the bizarre appearance of hellish creatures who, in a non-mythological
context, seemed more like writhing refugees from a second-rate episode of Dr Who than tragic figures of dread. The
dance routines, however well executed, seemed tone-deaf to Charpentier’s music
and quite unaware of the dramatic
role that dance should play in this repertoire. Some time immersed in a
seventeenth-century manual, if only to reject its prescriptions, might have
been well spent.
If opera is held to be mere ‘entertainment’
– and not very entertaining entertainment at that – then there seems little
case for public subsidy at all; if treated more seriously, more daringly, more
provocatively, more shockingly, then it justifies itself handsomely as public
discourse. German houses tend to understand that. Our London houses show some understanding
of that from time to time; if only McVicar, undoubtedly a master of his craft in
terms of having singers and actors do what he would, might shed the disturbing
anti-intellectualism that has pervaded so much of his recent work and go beyond
mere crowd-pleasing spectacle. Rightly or wrongly, the Prologue was omitted
entirely.
Christian Curnyn’s conducting
will doubtless be lauded in certain quarters. There was a far from unimpressive
ebb and flow to it, the boundaries between air, chorus, and recitative properly
brought into question, even dissolved. That undoubted achievement could readily
have formed the basis of a fine performance. The great pity, however, just as
in Giulio Cesare last autumn, was ‘period’
obsession: puritanical elimination of vibrato, refusal to allow the strings to
sing, indeed to sound like orchestral sings as opposed to members of a village
folk band, and what sounded very much to me – I could not see the pit – like employment
of different, so-called ‘Baroque’ bows. There were moments, especially solo
moments, when the ENO strings seemed to regain control, but they really should
not have to play with both hands metaphorically tied behind their backs. If we
are to have the rare, priceless advantage of modern strings, then for goodness
sake let them be used. The blend with recorders was often problematic, as it always
tends to be; modern flutes would have been a far better choice. Trumpets and a
variety of drums alleviated the worst of the vibrato-less tyranny.
What of the singers? The Mercure galant enthused of Marie Le
Rochois, a veteran of Lully’s 1686 Armide,
to which score and libretto make reference and allusion on numerous occasions:
The passions are so vivid, particularly
in Médée, that when this role was but declaimed it did not fail to make a great
impression on the listeners. Mlle Rochois, one of the best singers in the world
and who performs with warmth, finesse and intelligence, shone in this role and
made the most of its beauties. All of Paris is enchanted...
How would Sarah Connolly
match up? Very well indeed. There were moments earlier on when I wondered
whether the role was quite suited to her voice, some of its richness lost on
account of the range. However, from the point of her summoning the spirits
onwards, such doubts were triumphantly banished. The part became Connolly’s, in
dramatic and musical terms equally; there was no doubt about where one’s
sympathies lay, however horrific her crime. Katherine Manley’s Créuse offered
an excellent foil, necessarily a poor second to Médée, yet beautifully sung and
acted, and capable of eliciting a degree or two of sympathy herself. Likewise
Roderick Williams’s typically subtle, intelligent portrayal of Oronte, though
as in every case, one could not help but wonder what he might have sounded like
in French, Christopher Cowell’s English translation making a good stab at an
impossible task. Brindley Sherratt’s Créon offered a well-judged blend of
hubris and haplessness. Many of the singers in smaller roles shone too, for
instance Rhian Lois and Aoife O’Sullivan as the confidantes of Médee and
Créuse. Choral singing was excellent too. The sole fly in the ointment was
Jeffrey Francis’s quite unheroic Jason. There may be a good case for
deconstruction of heroism in this case, but there needs to be a degree of
construction in the first place. The role sat unhelpfully for his voice, but
stage presence was lacking too.
Three cheers are certainly
due to ENO for this foray into pre-Ramellian tragédie lyrique. Would it not be a wonderful thing to hear some
Lully next? Or indeed, to move forward to Gluck? Let such further explorations,
however, be the province of a director who would take form and drama with but a
modicum of greater seriousness.
