Medea, Melodrama and the Limitations of Perception (original) (raw)

Musical Interpretations of Medea’s Myth in the 21th Century French Opera

Source of uncountable musical interpretations since the beginning of the 20th century, the ancient Greek tragedy continues to concern, seduce and inspire numerous French composers who create essentially stage works. Opera, in particular, becomes again an ideal form of research, creation and innovation of myths. During the years 2000, Medea’s myth has been revived three times at the operatic stage by Christophe Looten (1958), Michèle Reverdy (1943) and Pascal Dusapin (1955). In 2001, Christophe Looten composes the opera Médée de Thessalonique (three acts; for four soloists and instrumental ensemble) according to Frédéric Lenormand’s libretto. It was staged at the Opéra d’Arras and performed by the Ensemble Ars Nova. Two years later, Médée of Michèle Reverdy (five acts; for five soloists and orchestra), based on Christa Wolf’s Medea-Stimmen, Bernard Banoun’s and Kai Stefan Fritsch’s libretto, was performed at the Opéra de Lyon. Finally, Pascal Dusapin’s Medea (initially titled Medeamaterial and composed in 1992) according to Heiner Müller’s text, was presented as a choreographed opera (choreography by Sasha Waltzon) at the Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg in 2007. These operas show obviously a contemporary musical expression if we take in consideration the incredible and very demanding voice demonstration in Medea, the great taste for exploration and invention in Médée or even the use of a bi-pentaphonique mode in Médée de Thessalonique. Following very different and modern adaptations/rewritings of the Euripides’s original text, sometimes linked to actual events (Berlin Wall, Heiner Müller), are these works “connected”, in a way, with the ancient Greek musical past and how? Can we trace the use of any kind of modes? Is modality present and associated with each composer’s distinct and proper musical language and if so, why? This paper will attempt to answer these questions in order to comprehend the French contemporary operatic creation inspired by the ancient Greek Drama.

Operatic ambiguities and the power of music

Cambridge Opera Journal, 1992

Operatic ambiguities and the power of music ELLEN ROSAND 'Pur sempre su le nozze canzoneggiando vai.' Arnalta's remark to Poppea (L'incoronazione di Poppea, Act II scene 10), occasioned by Poppea's lyrical exultation over the death of Seneca, provokes the closing sententia of Edward T. Cone's recent exploration of the ambiguous world of opera and its inhabitants. 1 Translating the nurse's comment as 'You're forever going around singing songs about your wedding', Cone concludes that 'this is just what characters in opera do: they go around singing songs all the time'. But that is not what Arnalta says. Nor, more importantly, is that what characters in opera do all the time-not Poppea, not Cherubino, not even Orpheus. As Cone himself acknowledges at the beginning of his essay, sometimes operatic characters, like any others, sing real songs-what Cone calls 'realistic song'; other times, although they may in fact be singing, they are intended to be understood, by the audience and by one another, as speaking-Cone calls this 'operatic' or 'expressive song'. This mode of expression distinguishes them from characters in other dramatic worlds and, to be sure, from the inhabitants of our own world. There is yet a third category of expression in opera, of course, that of literal speech, or recitative, which, had he considered it at all, Cone might have called 'realistic speech'. Having ostensibly undertaken to investigate whether the distinction between 'realistic' and 'operatic' song actually holds up (p. 126), Cone chooses examples that allow him to conclude in the negative and to affirm the importance of the overlap between the two kinds of song. I think he abandoned his quest too easily. Peter Kivy's attempt to help him out 2-by showing, on the one hand, that the distinction may be cleaner in some operas than in others and, on the other, by trying to bridge the gap that such an overlap would seem to create between the world of opera and our world-has encouraged my own. Although my method and motivation are very different, my comments, like Kivy's, should be taken as sympathetic musings on some of the issues raised by Cone, rather than as dissent. Kivy's approach is based on a reductive view of Cone's purpose, which he construes as the desire to demonstrate that all operatic characters are composers

Music and Pathos in Aeschylean Tragedy

Forthcoming in The Beauties of Song: Aesthetic Appreciations of Music in the Greek and Roman World, edited by David Creese and Pierre Destrée.

In antiquity Aeschylus was well known for the violently affective power of his choral performances. This paper looks for indications within the tragedies themselves that the music and dance that were such important parts of their performance were meant to disturb the audience. The first half surveys a range of passages from Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides, in which metrical effects and metamusical language (language that describes music-making at the same time as music is performed) reinforce the emotional and physical impact of a song. I then focus on Suppliants, a play which has a greater proportion of choral song than any other surviving tragedy. I show how the musical performance of this play would immerse its audience in an emotionally fraught drama, guiding their responses so that they feel the full force of the suppliants’ position at each stage of the plot. This process is most clearly at work in the parodos, in which the chorus essentially tell us how to react to their song. But the most affective moment of the tragedy comes in the fourth stasimon, when two choruses together produce music of disturbance, fear, and violence. By exploring the range of musical effects in this play, I demonstrate that the tragic stage was already a site for extensive musical experimentation some time before the “New Music” of the later fifth century.

A Multimodal Approach to the Study of Opera in Aribert Reimann’s Medea

Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022

This book offers insights into the ways in which the myth of Medea reflects cultural concepts deeply rooted in our cognition and their expression through language and music. The myth of Medea, its symbols and motives, constitutes one of the most thrilling themes in performing arts and literature. Aribert Reimann’s opera Medea, based on the drama Medea by Franz Grillparzer, has enjoyed great success. Given that cultural concepts are manifested through cognitive mechanisms like conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy, the book offers a finely-nuanced analysis of the application of figurative mechanisms in visual and music modes, in addition to verbal. It will appeal to musicologists, theatre theorists and scholars of cognitive science, as well as opera singers, opera directors and dramaturgists.

Musical Interpretations of Medea's Myth in the 21 st Century by Andriana Soulele

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2021

During the first decade of the 2000s, Medea's myth was revived numerous times on the operatic stage. Among several scenic works, we chose to refer to three French operas which, despite their differences, share some common features: Médée de Thessalonique by Christophe Looten (2001), Médée by Michèle Reverdy (2003) and Medea by Pascal Dusapin (2007), a choreographed version of the composer's opera Medeamaterial (originally written in 1992) by Sasha Waltz. These operas display a contemporary musical expression and they also reveal very different and modern versions of Medea's myth, associated to actual events, political or not. Each composer's point of view, their goals and choices concerning the myth's adaptation, vocal treatment, instrumentation and musical language show not only how intriguing is to represent Medea's character for an artist, but also how an ancient female archetype can offer countless possibilities for ingenious and powerful operas. As a free and strong immigrant woman, Medea is reflected in a way in the face of modern women, who still fight to find their place in patriarchal societies. As a result, Medea's myth is present in musical creation of our days and largely contributes to the fact that ancient Greek drama remains an indelible source of inspiration for the French contemporary opera.

The Role of Music in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”

2019

Music, as a distinguished art, can combine the full spectrum of all other arts, including words, colors, singing, dancing, and stage spectacle and providing audiences with something to satisfy their artistic needs and relax their senses. In drama, the employment of music (being played separately or accompanying the action) in a standard play can probably heighten emotion, support dramatic action, and evoke atmosphere and mood in ways that words alone cannot do. The paper basically sheds light on the relationship between literature and art (music, in particular) as two branches of art that deal effectively with feelings and emotions, which are either created or supported accordingly. The second part of the paper tackles the psychological effects of music on human beings. The third and last part of the paper deals with the role of music in Shakespeare's last play, The Tempest.