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Visions of Medea: Musico-dramatic transformations of a myth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2008

Paolo Russo
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Extract

On 13 March 1797, Cherubini's Médée was given its première at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris. The opera was designed to be a tragédie lyrique with all the trappings: only the hostility directed towards young composers (Cherubini, but also Méhul and Le Sueur) during the Terror and the Directory had prevented its performance at the city's first theatre, the Académie Royale de Musique (briefly re-christened the Théâtre de la République et des Arts after the Revolution). Although Cherubini's opera followed the conventions of opéra comique (most important, of course, the use of spoken dialogue), it also bore significant traces of late eighteenth-century opera seria dramaturgy. This generic eclecticism placed Médée in the midst of an aesthetic tangle, an early manifestation of nineteenth-century opera's strained but still powerful connection to eighteenth-century conventions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Opera Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , July 1994 , pp. 113 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 Jean Mongréden considers Médée a ‘synthesis at once of Gluck's theories of sincerity of expression and of a new, warmer, more vibrant – in a word, more human – ideal that imposed itself gradually on opera beginning around 1789 … truly a turning point between two aesthetics’. La Musique en France des lumières au romantisme (Paris, 1986), 98.Google Scholar

2 It is in this context that we can interpret the frequent intersections of serious and comic theatre, or of tragédie lyrique and Metastasian opera that marked Hoffman's entire dramatic output. See Joly, Jacques, Dagli Elisi all'inferno (Florence, 1990)Google Scholar; Russo, Paolo, ‘“Lorsqu'on verra céder la force à la faiblesse”: Variazioni francesi sul Demofonte metastasiano’, in Recercare, 4 (1992)Google Scholar; and Mastropasqua, Mauro and Russo, Paolo, ‘Musica in scena: Adrien di Méhul-Hoffman’, free paper read at the 15th Congress of the International Musicological Society,Madrid,1992 (conference proceedings forthcoming).Google Scholar

3 Hoffman (1760–1828) had written libretti for Phèdre (1786) and Nepthè (1789) for Le Moyne, and Euphrosine (1790) and Adrien (first performed in 1799, but written in 1792) for Méhul. As a critic for the Journal de l'empire and the Journal des débats from 1810 on, he left much elucidation of his theories and dramatic tastes. Among the most instructive is his history of the opéra comique: he traces the origins of the genre from the works of Favart in the first half of the century rather than beginning, as do his contemporaries, with Pergolesi's La sema padrona. Hoffman's history then passes by way of Marmontel, who originated the comédie en musique, through the introduction of the drame and the tragédie, and concludes with a radical critique of the works of Sedaine and of the mélodrame. See ‘Théâtre de l‘Opéra-Comique’, in Oeuvres complètes de F. B. Hoffman avec une notice biographique et littéraire par L Cartel, 10 vols (Paris, 1829), IX, 509–42.Google Scholar

4 Staged in November 1660 at Neubourg castle by the Marquis de Sourdéac, and later revived as part of the wedding celebrations of Louis XIV.

5 Among other self-criticisms: ‘This pageant of dying victims was necessary to fill out my fifth act … but to tell the truth, its effect is not appropriate to tragedy’. And ‘the style of this work is very uneven’.

6 First performed at Saint-Germain, 11 January 1675. The libretto, although entitled Thésée, has Medea as its true protagonist, and, like the other plays, centres on the theme of vindictive jealousy.

7 ‘Réprésentée par les commédiens français de la cour sur le nouveau théâtre de S. A. Electoral de Saxe à Dresde.’

8 The opera failed and was replaced by Lully's original version. Mondonville's refusal to accept the theatre's fee remains notorious; the composer apologised for having lost the Académie Royale money by daring to alter Lully's masterwork.

9 This was the great success of a composer who, three years later, would compete with Cherubini himself, responding to Cherubim's Démophon on a libretto by Marmontel with a version of the same Metastasian subject in an adaptation by Desriaux. On eighteenth-century settings of the Medea subject (not only the French versions), see Scott, Robert Lavin, ‘Medea on the Eighteenth-Century Stage’, Ph.D. diss., 1979Google Scholar; Ann Arbor microfilms, 1984.

10 Among many, the best remembered are La Toison d'or, a one-act opéra comique by Sage, Le and d'Orneval (Foire Saint-Laurent, 1724Google Scholar; unpublished); Médée et Jason, en un acte en vaudevilles, a parody of the Pellegrin-Salomon opera, by Dominique, , fils, Lélio and Romagnesi, (Théâtre-Italien, 1727)Google Scholar; Médée et Jason, a parody of the same work, in one act with vaudevilles, by Carolet, (Théâtre-Italien, 1736)Google Scholar; Thésée, a parody of Lully by Favart, , Laujon, and Parvi, (Foire St-Germain, 1745)Google Scholar; Arlecchino Teseo, a parody in one act in prose with canzonette by d'Orville, Valois (Théâtre-Italien, 30 01 1745Google Scholar; unpublished).

11 Clément, (1742–1812)Google Scholar was the French translator of Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata. In 1775 he published the three-volume Anecdotes dramatiques, listing in alphabetical order all the tragedies, operas and theatre pieces presented in Paris. His Essai critique sur la littérature ancienne et moderne appeared in 1785 after being published in instalments in the Journal de Monsieur.

12 In 1765 a version of the same ballet had been staged at the Opéra by Gaetano Vestris (Médée et Jason: Ballet tragique rémis par M Vestris avec augmentation de scènes et des fêtes). This version suppressed the second, third and fourth scenes, and modified the last. It was parodied as the Ballet terrible. All citations from Noverre's ballet below are taken from the programme for the 177 an version.

13 See, for example, Corneille, Pierre, Médée (V, 6)Google Scholar; Quinault, , Thésée (IV, 2)Google Scholar; Corneille, Thomas, Médée (V, 8)Google Scholar; Longepierre, , Médée (IV, 7)Google Scholar; Pellegrin, , Médée et Jon (V, Ultima)Google Scholar; Clément, , Médée (II, I and III, 1)Google Scholar; Desriaux, , La Toison d'or (II, 4).Google Scholar

14 Corneille, Pierre, La Toison d'or (IV, 2).Google Scholar

15 The magic wand is often used to stop suddenly or impede the movements of various characters: in Corneille, Médée stops a messenger to make him tell her of Créuse's death (V, 1); in Longepierre she stops Jason, who wants to strike her down to avenge the murder of Créuse (V, 4); in Thomas Corneille (IV, 6) she stops the guards and Créon before they can arrest her; in Pellegrin (II, 2) she captures Créuse, carries her into a frightful cave and threatens her with death; in Noverre, driven by her desire for vengeance, she stops Jason in the act of killing himself. This last is a more spectacular version of Pellegrin, in which the Corinthians stop Jason just before he commits suicide.

16 Corneille, Pierre, La Toison d'or (III, 4)Google Scholar; Corneille, Pierre, Médée (IV, 1)Google Scholar; Corneille, Thomas, Médée (III, 1)Google Scholar; Longepiene, , Médée (IV, 1–2)Google Scholar; Pellegrin, , Médée et Jason (V, 1).Google Scholar The threats and the imprisonment of the rival were a typical situation in opera and in the tragédie à machines, providing opportunities for grand scenic effects featuring ghosts or incarnations of allegorical figures.

17 Noverre, scene 11; analogous situations can be found in all the operatic versions of the plot.

18 Corneille, Pierre (II, 2)Google Scholar; Longepierre, (II, 3)Google Scholar; Corneille, Thomas (II, 1)Google Scholar; Pellegrin, (III, 3)Google Scholar; Clément, (I, 2).Google Scholar On this scene and on the salient points of Pierre Corneille's dramaturgy generally, see Fumaroli, Marc, Emi ed oratori Retorica e drammatuigia secentesche (Bologna, 1990), 71–85.Google Scholar

19 Corneille, Pierre (III, 3)Google Scholar; Longepierre, (II, 5)Google Scholar; Corneille, Thomas (III, 2)Google Scholar; Pellegrin, (III, 4)Google Scholar; Clément, (I, 4).Google Scholar

20 Corneille, Pierre (V, 3)Google Scholar; Corneille, Thomas (IV, 9)Google Scholar; Pellegrin, (V, 9).Google Scholar

21 Longepierre, (IV, 7–8)Google Scholar; Novene (scene 9). The scene appears with slight variations also in Clément, (II, 1)Google Scholar; there Medea's doubts are postponed until after the murder of the children, which takes place off stage.

22 Hoffman himself had begun to give a more dramatic and more tragic tone to opéra comique with his Euphrosine ou le Tyran corrigé (1790)Google Scholar and Stratonice (1792; both for Méhul)Google Scholar, which marked important dates in the genre's move towards more strongly ‘dramatic’ subjects in the classical sense. Cherubini himself had already written masterworks of opéra comique that could hardly be described as comic. Cherubim's growing inclination to reduce the importance of the comic episodes and characters that had continues to figure in works like Eliza and Lodoïrka was fully realised in Midée, where comic scenes are eliminated altogether. Despite what some historians have asserted, the standard musical theatre practice of imposing a happy ending does not seem to have posed a problem. Not only did all earlier operatic Médées have the traditional tragic ending: several other examples remind us that a tragic ending was often permitted –one thinks, for example, of Pellegrin's, Jepthé (1731).Google Scholar

23 ‘Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique’ in Oeuvres complètes de F. B. Hoffman, IX, 526ff.Google Scholar

24 ‘Traité du mélodrame par M. A!A!A!’, in Oeuvres complètes, IX, 411–23, here 421.Google Scholar

25 Hoffman insisted on respect for the classical rules. Julien-Louis Geoffroy, writing about Hoffman's Euphrosine (set by Méhul), said that Hoffman was more rational and dramatic in his opéras comiques than Voltaire had been in his tragedies; see Geoffroy, , Cours de littérature dramatique, 5 vols (Paris, 1819–1820), V, 172.Google Scholar Musicians will be amazed, according to Hoffman, when it is demonstrated to them that ‘there is an aspect of music that they cannot judge, and whose assessment belongs exclusively to men of letters and men of the world who have taste and learning’ (he refers to aspects of versification and prosody; see Oeuvres complètes, IX, 483Google Scholar). Hoffman also showed himself well aware that every artistic genre has a generally accepted non-realistic aspect. He says musical declamation differs from spoken declamation only in that the first fixes the intonation and the intervals in an invariable manner, while the second leaves them ad libitum (ibid., 512; emphasis in the original). The distinction between recitative and recitation, and thus between tragédie lyrique and opéra comique, was for Hoffman of little importance, since it rested merely on conventions and on genre.

26 This was the ambition that had motivated many librettists in the preceding decades and that shaped a significant chapter in the history of French opera. The seriousness with which these librettists approached their texts contradicts the popular notion of tragédie lyrique as mere courtly spectacle, with devaluing labels such as ‘Baroque’ or ‘pre-classical’. To recall the importance of the debate over the tragédie lyrique, as well as its links with spoken tragedy, we should return to the writings of Roy, Pellegrin, Danchet, at least up to Cahusac. See Russo, Paolo, ‘L'isola di Alcina. Funzioni drammaturgiche del divertissement nella tragédie lyrique’, Nuova rivista musicale italiana, 20 (1987), 1–15Google Scholar; and Russo, , ‘Les Incertitudes de la tragédie lyrique. Zoroastre de Cahusac-Rameau’, Revue de musicologie, 75 (1989), 47–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 See Truchet, Jacques, La Tragédie classique en France (Paris, 1975), Chapter 2Google Scholar; and Scherer, Jacques, La Dramaturgie classique en France (Paris, 1950; rpt, 1986), 58–9.Google Scholar

28 With respect to the archetypal bonds between Medea and Phaedra, it is also worth a glance at a curious detail of Handel's Teseo, produced in London in January 1713. In Medea's monologue (II, 1), the librettist Nicola Haym, who had fashioned his libretto after Quinault, wisely kept Medea's confidante silent: but he apparently submitted to the power of suggestion and gave her the name Fedra, a name that had no connection with either the drama or with the myth of Medea – and in fact is not even listed in the cast of characters at the beginning of the libretto.

29 Geoffroy, , Cours de littérature dramatique, 5 vols (Pans, 1819–20), V, 253.Google Scholar

30 Longepierre, (II, 1)Google Scholar; Hoffman, (II, 6–7)Google Scholar; in each case this image is found also in Seneca.

31 Longepierre, (IV, 6–8)Google Scholar; Hoffman, (II, 4).Google Scholar Here too Hoffman's original source was Seneca, but Longepierre's model asserts itself again after Médée has tried in vain to murder her children for the first time; Longepierre, (IV, 8)Google Scholar; Hoffman, (III, 3).Google Scholar

32 The theme of open roads is a common one. It appears almost literally in Longepierre, who speaks of ‘new roads’ over which the faithful dragons conduct their mistress, and in Thomas Corneille: ‘The air is for me an open road’.

33 See Kintzler, C., Jean Philippe Rameau: Splendeur et naufrage de l'esthétique du plaisir à l'âge classique (Paris, 1983), 86ff.Google Scholar

34 Revolutionary opera's tendency to use the chorus to merely celebratory and scenic ends is a rather static and pompous device, as illustrated in Mongrédien, , La Musique en France (see n. 1), 61ff.Google Scholar

35 See the description of this form in Bartlet, Elizabeth ‘Etienne Nicolas Méhul and Opera during the French Revolution, Consulate, and Empire: A Source, Archival, and Stylistic Study’, Ph.D. diss. (University of Chicago, 1982), 108.Google Scholar

36 It was Jacques Joly who during the discussion following my presentation at the conference ‘Ruoli e parti nell'opera’ (Fondazione Venice, 1990)Google Scholar, urged me to explore the theatrical function of this aria more deeply; it is certainly richer and more important than is usual for a secondary role such as a confidante. I should like to thank the Fondazione Cini for organizing the conference and thus stimulating my research into this area.