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Médée at L'Opéra Comique (Photo: DR S. Brion)

When it comes to weight of historical performance, few operas outside the accepted canon carry as much as Cherubini’s Médée: the opera’s discography is dominated by Maria Callas’ assumptions of the title role (in Italian, including one with Bernstein).  

Cherubini’s Medée was premiered in 1797 at Paris’ Théâtre Feydou. The opera is based on the famous infanticidal legend of Medea: librettist François-Benoît Hoffman took Euripides as his principal source. Talking of sources, conductor Laurence Equilbey uses Heiko Cullman’s Boosey & Hawkes edition of the original, with spoken dialogues. The use of period instruments highlights the colour inherent in Cherubini’s score, a vast, dark-hued palette. The sound of Philippe Miqueu’s nicely acidic obbligato bassoon in Néris' ‘Ah, nos peines seront communes' was a memorable case in point, with Marie-Andrée Bouchard-Lesieur in fine voice. If Insula Orchestra sounded harsher at Paris’ Opéra Comique than at its home (La Seine Musicale), and despite some first-night imperfect ensemble and tuning, Laurence Equilbey still got to the heart of the piece. Good, also, to have accentus as the chorus: world-class, resplendent.

Médée also tackles questions of ‘otherness,’ which today links with the dark side of Nationalism. Marie-Ève Signeyrole (director, conception, video realisation) tackles all head-on: that ‘video’ component is a vital part of the action, allowing for back-stories as well as offering a second visual perspective on ongoing stage action. Less is more, however: while Equilbey brought an underlying tensile strength to Cherubini’s overture, there was too much activity onstage, too many splayed jigsaw pieces. As narrator, Caroline Frossard offers a chilling, repeated presence.

The opening is set in a prison, post-massacre, bars projected on-stage; the later video of the poisoning is stronger by eschewing gory detail. One is led to question predetermination: ‘I had no choice’; 'I so wish it had been different’. But at the heart of this is the production’s highlighting of the children (Félix Lavoix Donadieu, Inès Emara), their curtailed possibilities, the shadow of their approaching deaths, all brilliantly integrated. Lighting (Philippe Berthomé) is perfectly congruent with Signeyrole’s conception; it is Yashi’s costumes more than Fabien Teignés sets that place the action in a contemporary setting.

Médée at L'Opéra Comique (Photo: DR S. Brion)

Dircé's entreaty to Hymen is glorious; upcoming Montréal- and Juilliard-trained Lila Dufy’s assumption revealed a mobile, focused, voice, contrasting with her more insubstantial female attendants. But until the entrance of Médée (the fifth scene), it was the male voices that shone: the superbly full-toned Edwin Crossley-Mercer (Créon) and Julien Behr’s open-voiced, fervent Jason. So far, so male-dominated.

Joyce El-Khoury’s Médée captivated from first to last, her ‘Vous voyez de vos fils’  mesmerising,  shot through with steel. El-Khoury's acting was of both body and voice, and how her delivery of the line ‘O chers enfants’ cut to the quick. Aided by dramaturgical tech and Equilbey’s structural grasp, El-Khoury made the opera’s terrifying climax unforgettable.

Cherubini’s score is not uniformly inspired (stock gestures do appear), but its cumulative effect is maximal. Recommended.

The present production and major cast members will perform Médée at Opéra Comique,  Montpélier, on March 8, 11 and 13, there conducted by Jean-Marie Zeltouni, with the Opéra Orchestre National de Montpélier