Medea in Corinto
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| Original title: | Medea in Corinto |
Medea ( Eugène Delacroix , 1862) |
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| Shape: | Melodramma tragico in two acts |
| Original language: | Italian |
| Music: | Johann Simon Mayr |
| Libretto : | Felice Romani |
| Premiere: | November 28, 1813 |
| Place of premiere: | Naples |
| Place and time of the action: | Corinth, mythical time |
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Medea in Corinto is an opera in two acts by Johann Simon Mayr based on the libretto by Felice Romani .
It was commissioned by the Teatro San Carlo in Naples , and the first performance took place on November 28, 1813. The work was very successful and was performed in many Italian and European opera houses in the years that followed.
content
first act
Creusa is the daughter of Creon , King of Corinth . She is in a relationship with the warrior Jason , but the relationship is on shaky ground. Jason wants to marry her, but Creusa himself is already engaged to the Athenian king Aigeus , while Jason has long been married to Medea and has two children with her. The situation is coming to a head, especially since Jason, with the help of Medeas , killed Pelias , the Kolch king, and the Kolchians are now besieging Corinth. Akastos , the son of the murdered Kolchen king, orders Creon to drive Medea and Jason out of Corinth. After negotiations, a compromise is reached: Jason has to leave Medea and Medea should be banished from Corinth . Creon prepares his daughter's wedding to Jason. Medea does not surrender; she demands justice from the gods for her husband's breach of faith. Jason denies being in love, claiming it will protect Medea's life and that of the two children from Akastos' vengeance. When King Aigeus in Athens hears about the upcoming wedding of his fiancée Creusa to Jason, he and Medea violently try to prevent the celebration. Aigeus is now trying to kidnap Creusa.
Second act
The kidnapping fails and Jason wins over Aigeus, who is now imprisoned. The wedding is to continue. Medea sees red. The gods of the underworld are supposed to help her in her vengeance campaign. Creusa has mercy on Medea, she begs her father to grant Medea's last wish: to say goodbye to her children. Medea feigns a friendship with Creusa and gives her a precious robe. Everything seems to merge into benevolence. Aigeus and Medea join forces. She helps him escape and he now supports her in her revenge. The marriage between Jason and Creusa is complete. But the valuable dress that Creusa got from Medea was poisoned. Creusa dies in agony. Jason is furious. Medea kills her and Jason's children. Jason tries to take his own life. Medea is now on the run.
Performers of the world premiere
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The performers of the world premiere of Mayr's Medea included the most important singers of the time, above all the famous Isabella Colbran in the title role, but also several others who were to take part in Rossini's Neapolitan operas only a little later : Michele Benedetti (Creonte), Manuel García d. Ä. (Egeo), Andrea Nozzari (Giasone), Teresa Luigia Pontiggia (Creusa), Raffaele Ferrari (Evandro), Joaquína García (Ismene) and Gaetano Chizzola (Tideo). Maria García (later Maria Malibran ) played one of Medea's children.
The role of Medea was not only one of the best roles of Colbran but later especially by Giuditta Pasta , whose expressive interpretation was famous, and as a forerunner of their signature role, the title role of Bellini's Norma , may be considered and applied. Mayr's Medea sang the pasta for the first time in January 1823 in Paris, where it was found “simple, séduisante, sublime, superb” (“simple, seductive, sublime, superb”). She sang the role again in Paris and London in 1826; there she had such a triumphant success as Medea that she had to sing the opera many times in the following years (1827, 1828, 1831, 1833 and 1837). In Italy she embodied the Medea in Naples in 1826 and in Milan in 1829 . Lord Mount Edgcomb, who first heard the pasta in a private concert and was disappointed with it, wrote in 1834 about her interpretation of Mayr's Medea: “No part could be better calculated to put her strengths in the right light than Medea , which one she did Offers opportunities for deepest pathos and the most intense passion. She was eminently successful in both, and her performance surprised and delighted me. "
Origin and meaning
The greatest peculiarity of Mayr's Medea in Corinto lies in the fact that it has a thoroughly composed orchestral accompaniment, i.e. no secco recitatives . This also distinguishes it from the Medea Cherubinis , much better known today through Maria Callas , which originally had spoken dialogues as a French opéra-comique and was only provided with recitatives much later (1855) in Germany. Another special feature of his time and within Italian opera was the tragically negative ending. Rossini also wrote a tragic ending for his Tancredi for a performance in Ferrara that same year , but the more familiar happy ending was used in the Venetian premiere and all other performances. Medea in Corinto was an important milestone in the direction of Italian romantic opera because of its well-composed form and because of the dark ending.
The through-composed form originally did not correspond to the ideas of the fifty-year-old composer, who in a first draft in the sense of the typical Italian tradition still drafted secco recitatives, and even initially conceived the part of giasone for a mezzo-soprano (i.e. for a castrato or as a trouser role ) . Since Naples was under the rule and cultural influence of Napoleonic France at this time , the clients at the Teatro San Carlo , especially Domenico Barbaja , insisted on an execution in the sense of the French tradition according to Gluck ( Orfeo ed Euridice etc.) and Spontini ( La vestale ): So a pure orchestral accompaniment and only tenors and basses in the male roles .
Since Mayr was already known by all composers of the Italian opera of this epoch for his imaginative and elaborate instrumental and orchestral parts, he performed this task with great success - especially and especially in the recitative passages, where the orchestral interludes with great sensitivity to the excellent text of young Felice Romani. Mayr's orchestration was celebrated by Italian contemporaries as extremely successful, especially in comparison with Spontini's La vestale , which was played only a few years earlier in Naples and which was perceived as "noisy" in the land of bel canto .
Medea was only Romani's second opera, and his second collaboration with Mayr. The great success of the opera was based to a large extent on Romani's libretto, in which the figure of Medea is not depicted one-dimensionally as a malevolent fury, but in human terms as an actually loving woman whose feelings were rejected and hurt (see the Aria of Medea and the Duetto Medea / Giasone in the first act). The great emotional complexity and scenes like Medea's mysterious and eerie incantation scene in the second act may also have been the reason for the popularity of this opera with such expressive singer actresses as Colbran and Pasta.
It should be emphasized that Mayr's Medea in Corinto is an opera of late classical Italian bel canto shortly before or at the same time as the young Rossini , despite the French-Gluck concessions . In contrast to the French singing style (à la Cherubini and Spontini), it was a matter of course in the Italian performance tradition that the singing part, especially in the arias, was not simply sung as on the paper, but was decorated with stylistically appropriate ornaments. Some artists even exaggerated in this regard. B. by Angelica Catalani , the last castrato Giovanni Battista Velluti or the virtuoso Rossini tenor Giovanni David . For great vocal artists like Colbran, García, Nozzari and many others in particular, ornamentation was so natural that the composer took it into account and expected it from the outset, similar to the baroque opera. The above-mentioned French statement about Giuditta Pasta's somewhat later interpretation as “simple,…” (“simply,…”) can and must be against the background of the times - especially the exuberant, ecstatic ornamentation and coloratura joy of Rossini operas - be viewed as only relative.
Some parts of the opera exist in different versions, e.g. Part of Mayr's revision for a production at La Scala in Milan in 1823 with Teresa Belloc in the title role; however, there is no definitive final version.
New productions
In 2010 Medea in Corinto was performed again in the Nationaltheater Munich , Bayerische Staatsoper under the musical direction of Ivor Bolton , the staging was by Hans Neuenfels , the set by Anna Viebrock and the costumes by Elina Schizler . Medea was sung by Iano Tamar , Creusa by Elena Tsallagova , and Jason by Ramón Vargas .
Discography
- Medea in Corinto : Jane Eaglen , Yvonne Kenny , Bruce Ford , Raúl Giménez , Alistair Miles , Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by David Parry (Opera Rara, 1997)
- Medea in Corinto : Elżbieta Szmytka , Evelyn Pollock , Mark Milhofer , Lawrence Brownlee , Wojtek Gierlach , Carlos Petruzziello, Fiqerete Ymeraj, Andrés de Castillo, Symphony Orchestra & Choir of the St. Gallen Theater , conducted by David Stern (oehms classics, 2010)
literature
- Michael Wittmann : Giovanni Simone Mayr's opera “Medea in Corinto” in the context of the Medea settings of the 19th century. In: Franz Hauk, Iris Winkler (ed.): Work and life of Johann Simon Mayr in the mirror of time. Munich-Salzburg, 1998, pp. 105-119.
Web links
- Literature by and about Medea in Corinto in the catalog of the German National Library
- Medea in Corinto (Giovanni Simone Mayr) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna with digital copies of the libretto
- Trailer of the Bavarian State Opera
Remarks
- ↑ "No part could be more calculated to display her powers than that of Medea, which affords opportunities for the deepest pathos, and the most energetic passion. In both she was eminently successfull, and her performance both surprised and delighted me ”.
- ↑ A correspondingly decorated, very tasteful version of an aria from Mayr's opera Elena, written by the composer's own hand only a little later (or almost at the same time), has been preserved and exists in a recording with the baritone Russell Smythe. The world premiere of Elena took place just two months after Medea in Corinto , on January 28, 1814, also in Naples.
- ↑ A description of the first Egeo Manuel García on his debut in Paris in 1808, in addition to his great vocal qualities a. a. found out that "his singing is rich in ornament", "but often too heavily decorated" ("his singing is rich in ornament, but frequently too much embroidered").
- ↑ The fact that the pasta by no means represented a completely simple style of singing, but rather a style that was detoxified compared to Rossini, is also demonstrated by roles conceived for her, such as Donizetti's Anna Bolena from 1830, and Bellini's La sonnambula and Norma composed for her in 1831 , in the process of which she herself participated was heavily involved.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jeremy Commons & Don White: Giovanni Simone Mayr: Medea in Corinto. Booklet text for the CD box: A Hundred Years of Italian Opera 1810–1820 , Opera Rara ORCH 103, pp. 71–83, here: p. 71. For the participation of the still childish Maria García alias Malibran, see also: Jeremy Commons: Medea in Corinto. Booklet text for the CD box Giovanni Simone Mayr: Medea in Corinto , Opera Rara ORC 11, p. 18.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Jeremy Commons: Medea in Corinto. Booklet text for the CD box Giovanni Simone Mayr: Medea in Corinto. Opera Rara ORC 11.
- ^ Wilhelm Keitel and Dominik Neuner : Gioachino Rossini. Albrecht Knaus, Munich 1992, p. 61.
- ^ A b c Jeremy Commons & Don White: Giovanni Simone Mayr: Elena. Booklet text for the CD box: A Hundred Years of Italian Opera 1810–1820. Opera Rara ORCH 103, pp. 60-63.