Never change a winning team? The Staatsoper Berlin’s new production of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Médée reunites the tried-and-tested duo of Sir Simon Rattle and Peter Sellars, whose collaboration is familiar to the audience thanks to their stagings of both Bach Passions. Médée, an operatic rarity, is the highlight of this year’s Barocktage, the theatre’s festival dedicated to Baroque repertoire. Following a newly published critical edition, Sellars observes in the booklet notes that the work “has something to say to us”. And yet, other than being immersed in a generally dark atmosphere, and despite a musically valuable performance, the production leaves it rather unclear what this something is.
Set in a nondescript present day, Sellars’ Médée takes place in a border area whose overseer is Créon, King of Corinth. Under his vigilant, scheming eye the other two main characters – Médée and Jason – attempt to earn the sovereign’s mercy and favour, respectively. While Jason is advantaged by his status as a man and a prince, Médée is deprived of her own royal standing and held captive, her spouse deceiving her about his love for Créuse, the King’s daughter.
The woman’s limited power and freedom of action are mirrored by the scenery, designed by architect superstar Frank Gehry. In front of two large boulders made of see-through, translucent mesh, and below two clouds of steel wool, Médée stands trapped in a cage whose fourth wall is missing. The cell is the only object undergoing tangible changes throughout the opera, as the rest of the scenery remains mostly fixed, variously transformed by James Ingalls’ lighting. However, this vivid, eye-catching lighting isn’t enough to sustain a work whose dramatic tension often wavers. Médée’s build-up of grief and rage is notified by minimal changes, but such stretched-out nuance risks going unnoticed and falling through. Once the breaking point of Médée’s vengeance does come, some scenes achieve a striking visual effect – for Créon’s madness, the stage goes fully dark and is only backlit by a blue torch. But the question remains of what Sellars means to draw from the myth: if a condemnation of inhumane migration policies and gendered violence, then his staging is vague and neutral.
As is often the case with Baroque operas, Charpentier’s score poses certain questions regarding instrumentation and other details of the source material that leave much room for creativity to conductor and singers alike. Together with the basso continuo, three main sections could be singled out in Rattle’s orchestra: the strings, the recorders/flutes, and the oboes. The prominent sound of the woodwinds naturally gave the Freiburger Barockorchester a particularly mellow tone, darkened by tuning at 392 Hz. If not sombre, Rattle’s interpretation was wistful, reliant on unhurried tempi and pianissimi, far from the flourish of other Baroque performances. Occasional imbalances and imperfections from the ensemble were mostly due to the challenging quality of Charpentier’s music, which requires great care in its polyphonic moments. Less clear-cut distinctions between recitatives and arias, with one often flowing into the other, allowed Rattle to originate a homogenous sound and provide the singers with a reliable, intense accompaniment.
For an opera whose main character has a rightful place on the Mount Olympus of prima donna roles, Charpentier's version lies unexpectedly low in terms of memorable arias. The strength is conveyed by Médée's heightened speech, rather than by grand lyrical moments, and the other characters often appear in duets, instead of stand-alone scenes. In fact, little or no space is devoted to textbook virtuoso singing, thus motivating the singers to find other ways to shape their characters.
Magdalena Kožená met these demands by rendering an introverted portrayal of Médée, less of a diva and more of a conflicted, grieving, but powerful woman. Her physical constriction – forced into a cage for most of the opera – didn’t stop her from asserting her presence with her well-projected mezzo and melodic sensitivity, which particularly shone in the moving “Quel prix de mon amour”.
Opposite her was tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen, whose Jason convincingly juggled deceitfulness and tenderness. Van Mechelen’s agile tenor allowed him to refine his phrasing down to minute details, giving the character a complexity that would risk going overlooked. Something similar could be said about Luca Tittoto, whose Créon ranged from smug self-confidence, in almost buffo style, to occasions of deeper emotion. His full-bodied bass proved ideal for the role. With her well-sung Créuse, Carolyn Sampson embodied a type of femininity antithetical to that of Médée, affectionate and sensual at once. Lastly, the Staatsopernchor sounded solid and imposing as the collective voice of the opera.
