An arresting return for Medea
OperaThis is an early production photo of Cherubuini’s Médée (Medea) at La Scala, an opera with a chequered local history.
Its last appearance in Milan was the farewell appearance of Maria Callas, in a bad Italian translation with many cuts.
Tonight, they are playing the complete French version, conducted by Michele Gamba in a staging by Damiano Michieletto. Marina Rebeka stars as Médée.
The frisson is considerable.
The Berlin production has a stuntman in a suit being lit on fire and running through the set. Quite arresting, but it does detract a bit from the soprano’s final scene to hear the fire extinguisher go off backstage.
It’s a fine opera, which is seemingly ongoing a bit of a revival: Berlin had a new production in 2018 (or was it 2020?), and Sondra Radvanovsky opened the MET in 2022 in it, a production which she’s taking to Toronto this spring.
New photo Emil?
Same old! No idea why it’s showing up here.
Hard surfaces. Built for the camera. We’ll be looking at the same thing all evening. A theatre is not a TV studio!
«they are playing the complete French version » That would surprise me, since it would include reciting tons of alexandrines, which would require the ability of a Comédie-Française tragedian and prove to be a nightmare for any non-francophone singer…