Music and Background
Médée is a work of highly charged musical drama, focused on two characters, Jason and Medea, and two subjects, revenge and death. The grand, Classical story may look back to the old, aristocratic manner of opera before the Revolution, but the fierceness of the story-telling puts it in a different league, and Médée is in fact the only Revolutionary-period opera to have found a lasting place in the repertory. The title role is towering, an exhausting challenge for the singer. And although the score was written with spoken dialogue in the manner known as opéra comique, there are decidedly no laughs.
Highlights
The Jason/Medea duet that closes Act I is classical drama at its best, and Neris’ Act II aria ‘Ah, nos peines’ has touching beauty; but the musical dynamism in this opera comes in Act III, whose furious temper is set by the opening orchestral storm and escalates throughout into the final conflagration.
Did You Know?
Recommended Recording
Sylvia Sass, Veriano Luchetti, Budapest Symphony Orchestra/Lamberto Gardelli. Hungaraton HCD 11904/5. A better all-round performance than the legendary but flawed 1950s recording with Maria Callas.
(1866–1950)
Adriana Lecouvreur (1897)
L’Arlesiana (1902)
Cilea began writing operas when he was still a student at the Naples Conservatory but had lasting success with only one, Adriana Lecouvreur, and with the tenor aria known as Federico’s Lament from another, L’Arlesiana. The championship of the famous Enrico Caruso was instrumental in both cases. Much of Cilea’s life was devoted to teaching, and he ultimately became director of the conservatory where he studied. A member of the verismo school of composition, his musical language was more refined than most but tended to be limited in the development of ideas.
FORM: Opera in four acts; in Italian
COMPOSER: Francesco Cilea (1866–1950)
LIBRETTO: Arturo Colautti; from the play by Scribe and Legouvé
FIRST PERFORMANCE: Milan, 6 November 1902
Principal Characters
Adriana, an actress
Maurizio, Count of Saxony
Michonnet, stage director
Prince de Bouillon
Princess de Bouillon, his wife
Abbé de Chazeuil
Synopsis of the Plot
Setting: Paris; 1730
ACT I At the theatre, Adriana confides to Michonnet, who adores her, that she loves an officer in the Count of Saxony’s service. They are interrupted by the officer himself (actually the Count in disguise) who immediately declares his love for Adriana; before leaving for the performance, Adriana gives him some violets for his buttonhole. The Prince and the Abbé then enter, discussing a letter they have intercepted, addressed to Maurizio and arranging an assignation at the villa of the Prince’s mistress, Adriana’s actress rival, Duclos. The two men allow the letter to be delivered to Maurizio, who realises that the writer is not Duclos, but the Princess, a former lover. He decides to keep the appointment for political reasons. Adriana, meanwhile, is invited by the Prince to join an after-theatre party at the villa.
ACT II Maurizio and the Princess meet, but the Princess is upset to see the violets he is wearing and accuses him of having another lover; with great presence of mind he says they are a gift for her. At that moment they are surprised by the arrival of her husband and the Abbé, and the Princess hides in the next room. When Adriana arrives she recognises Maurizio as her ‘officer’ and they reaffirm their love. Maurizio asks Adriana to help the woman in the next room to escape. Later, in the dark, the two women discover that they are rivals for Maurizio’s love.
ACT III The Prince and Princess are holding a party. Among the guests is Adriana, whose voice the Princess recognises as that of her rival for Maurizio. When Maurizio himself comes in, the two rivals resort to charge and countercharge, ending with Adriana declaiming a passage from Racine’s Phèdre about lustful women while looking the Princess straight in the eye.
ACT IV Adriana is deeply depressed, believing that Maurizio no longer loves her. Her misery is compounded by the delivery of a box ‘from Maurizio’ containing the violets that she had given him. Sadly, Adriana kisses them and throws them on the fire. At that moment Maurizio himself comes in and asks her to marry him. Adriana is overjoyed. But suddenly she turns pale and faint. She accuses Maurizio of sending her poisoned flowers, which he denies, before dying in his arms. Michonnet, broken-hearted, knows that this is the work of the Princess, who has exacted the ultimate revenge.
Music and Background
Adriana Lecouvreur is generally said to be a fine opera for a fine soprano past her prime: in other words, the title role makes enough demands to be challenging but without too many top notes. As verismo writing goes, it is comparatively restrained and subtle.
Highlights
Adriana’s Act I ‘Io son l’umile ancella’ is sort of motto theme that recurs throughout the score. Her Act IV ‘Poveri fiori’ is the other show-stopper.
Recommended Recording
Joan Sutherland, Carlo Bergonzi, Welsh National Opera/Richard Bonynge. Decca 425 815-2. Sutherland in peak, grand-tragic form.
(1749–1801)
Il Matrimonio Segreto (1792)
Most of his eighty stage works are forgotten now,