Cherubini’s Medea made its Canadian Opera Company debut in a new-to-Toronto co-production by Sir David McVicar that had previously opened The Metropolitan Opera’s 2022 season. Many original Met cast members came as part of the package including its two leads, soprano Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role and tenor Matthew Polenzani as her feckless lover and father of her children, Giasone. It was a spectacular night for Torontonians needing a dose of big, grand opera which thankfully included a prima donna who could deliver one of the most taxing roles in the repertoire.
It’s worth noting which version of Cherubini’s strange amalgam of late Classical/proto-Romantic opera we were hearing. Certainly not in its original 1797 French form with spoken dialogue taken from Pierre Corneille's 1635 play, Médée. Instead, under the young Italian conductor Lorenzo Passerini, we heard the Italian Medea, created for the 1909 La Scala premiere with declaimed French dialogues transformed into accompanied recitativo by German composer Franz Lachner. This version received even more notoriety when Maria Callas took on the role in the 1950s resulting in both ‘official’ and ‘bootleg’ recordings of its major arias as well as the entire opera.
This prolonged history of transformation results in a work whose sound world harkens back to Mozart and Gluck while presaging Beethoven and Weber. Furthermore, Cherbuini wasn’t a melodist in the vein of other early Italian Romantics like Bellini and Donizetti. He doesn’t reward the audience with earworm tunes that stick in the memory. The Italian version of Medea is all about text, and requires artists who can declaim it idiomatically, with clear dramatic intent.
Radvanovsky and Polenzani were exemplary in this regard. The Canadian-American soprano made a welcome return to the COC after her stunning Rusalka (also a McVicar production) in 2019. The myriad of vocal colours, flinty tone and sheer volume for which she is renowned were all on display. Radvanovsky etched the opera’s sole, somewhat-famous aria, “De tuoi figli”, with her signature filigree piano, well-calibrated as a stark contrast to its more dramatic phrases. McVicar requires the soprano to be on her hands and knees throughout, crawling and dragging herself up and down stairs, adding considerable physical challenges to an already vocally taxing role. Radvanovsky deservedly raised her arms in triumph at her curtain call.
Giasone is a far from grateful role, the ultimate self-centred anti-hero. Medea has sacrificed much for him, killing her brother, helping him obtain the Golden Fleece and bearing him two children and yet, he throws her over for a new fiancée, Glauce. Polenzani’s portrayal did not shirk from showing Giasone’s ugly side, all the while singing with ringing, beautifully-varied tone and textbook clear diction.
Three other singers made COC debuts in key roles. As Glauce, the ultimate fatal victim of Medea’s jealousy, American soprano Janai Brugger sang her extended opening aria with bright tone and admirable dexterity. American bass-baritone Alfred Walker sang Creonte, Glauce’s father, with plenty of warmth and volume. What both these singers lacked was much tonal variety or pointing of the text. In contrast, as Medea’s handmaiden Neris, American mezzo-soprano Zoie Reams offered more nuanced delivery while never stinting on vocalism. Her delivery of “Solo un pianto”, with its haunting bassoon obbligato gorgeously played by Eric Hall, was exquisite.
McVicar’s set design meets the production’s vocal grandeur full-on. Action takes place in front of, or inside, an imposing, burnished gold temple facade which opens to reveal stunning and often shocking tableaux. Inside a huge, angled mirror magnifies whatever happens on stage from floor level to the flies. Glauce’s grand entrance with her seemingly never-ending wedding train, or later, her bloodied corpse crawling along the banquet table are thereby transformed into images resembling huge, old master style canvases.
Doey Lüthi’s costumes, especially for the chorus, are in the Directoire style reflective of the work’s late 18th-century origins. High waisted gowns and elaborately-plumed headdresses are contrasted in their opulence to Medea’s plain black dress and dishevelled tresses, thus establishing her outsider status. Giasone’s band of merry men are played by dancers costumed to look like something out of The Pirates of Penzance. Their zany antics are difficult to reconcile within the context of the heavy drama. Medea’s vengeful, cold-blooded murder of her children is also strangely mitigated by her implied suicide alongside them in the final conflagration.
One of the glories of Medea is its rich orchestration. From the get-go, Passerini signalled this was not going to be a routine evening, conducting a frantic, rhythmically charged overture and later, a spookily Gothic Act 3 storm prelude. The COC Orchestra sounded energised by its guest leader and by a challenging, unfamiliar score.
Medea may not be an enduring masterpiece but with an artist of Radvanovsky’s calibre, performances like this one should not be missed.
