Any soprano daring to take on the title role in Cherubini’s Medea has to exorcise the ghost of Maria Callas. Medea was a signature Callas role which the Greek-American soprano rescued from obscurity – supposedly learning it in a week! – and sang to acclaim around the world, including at the ancient amphitheatre at Epidaurus. Callas even starred in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1969 film based on the ancient myth. So to make your role debut as Medea in Athens in Callas’ centenary year, the challenge is doubly daunting. Step forward Italian soprano Anna Pirozzi.
Medea is a punishing role. The audience is kept waiting patiently for 40 minutes of pretty music, but once Medea arrives, crashing the wedding of Jason, the man who abandoned her, and Glauce, King Creon’s daughter, the opera cranks into gear and she never leaves the stage. Pirozzi commanded the house from her first entry and never ran out of steam. Vocally, she was rock solid. “Dei tuoi figli”, the aria where she pleads with Jason, was excellently shaped, her rich lower register and striking top notes well balanced. Pirozzi’s soprano is disciplined, technically sound and weighty enough to slice through orchestral textures (Turandot and Abigaille are recent roles). In an opera dripping with venom and vengeance, Pirozzi’s Medea writhed like a serpent through Cherubini’s score, coiled ready to strike.
Greek National Opera scored a major coup in securing Sir David McVicar’s lavish new staging as a co-production with the Metropolitan Opera, Canadian Opera Company and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. It was seen at the Met at the start of the season – starring the incredible Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role – and now opens in Medea’s spiritual home, in the city where Euripides’ play was first performed in 431 BC.
The drop curtain shows a woman’s contorted face, like a Greek mask, one eye glaring, the other shedding tears. McVicar designed the set himself and it is dominated by tarnished gold walls marking a society in decay, isolating Medea from the action, barring her from society. When these walls slide apart, the director plays with perspective, giant mirrors angled to provide a trompe l’oeil optical illusion, reflecting the action as if from above, gorgeously illuminated in Paule Constable’s chiaroscuro lighting designs.
Doey Lüthi’s costumes are mostly styled in late 18th-century France, the time of the opera’s composition, with Medea in a black gown, initially veiled, bedecked with crumpled lace and leather wristbands. McVicar is a safe pair of hands and his staging is singer-friendly (he wasn’t present in Athens, but sent Jonathon Loy and Hannah Postlethwaite to supervise his production).
There are many striking moments. In the Act 3 prelude, Medea seems to float in space as she contemplates the hideous murder of her own children. Katy Tucker’s video designs are thrilling in Medea’s self-immolation, a ring of fire engulfing her, Brünnhilde style, in the score’s closing pages.
Luigi Cherubini was an heir to Gluck’s operatic reforms and his music bestrides the Classical and Romantic eras. Medea was originally written in French (Medée, 1797) to be performed as an opéra-comique, complete with spoken recitatives, but with Franz Lachner’s composed recitatives (1855) and sung in Italian translation (1909) the opera veers towards proto-verismo. There were times when conductor Philippe Auguin treated it with “historically informed” gloves – the storm at the start of Act 3 had period punch with hard timpani sticks – but elsewhere, he had a tendency to drag tempi. There were also moments where the orchestra dominated, particularly when Vassiliki Karayanni’s fine Glauce was singing from the raised stage (she fared better in front of the sliding doors).
Italian tenor Giorgio Berrugi was a very good Jason, whose gleaming top notes rang cleanly. Other roles were taken creditably by members of the company: Karayanni was at her strongest in Glauce’s Act 1 cabaletta (aided by nimble flute decorations); bass Yanni Yannissis was sturdy as Creon; Nefeli Kotseli was an excellent Neris, Medea’s faithful servant, making much of her soulful aria “Solo un pianto” which was achingly phrased (with a weeping bassoon obbligato).
But ultimately Medea is all about the title character and this was Pirozzi’s night. In the opera, Medea sends a poisoned diadem and robe to Glauce as fatal wedding gifts. Taking on the mantle of Callas in this role is similarly fraught with danger, but Pirozzi proved herself a worthy heir to Callas’ crown.
Mark’s press trip to Athens was funded by Greek National Opera
