| Medea | |
|---|---|
| Opera by Aribert Reimann | |
 The composer in 2010 | |
| Language | German |
| Based on | Medea by Franz Grillparzer |
| Premiere | 28 February 2010 |
Medea is a German-language opera by Aribert Reimann after the play by Franz Grillparzer. It was premiered at the Vienna State Opera in February 2010. The German premiere was at the Oper Frankfurt in August 2010.
Aribert Reimann had already written seven literary operas, including Melusine , Lear and Troades , when he received a commission from the Vienna State Opera to write an opera for the conclusion of the era of Ioan Holender as General Director of the opera house. He chose the play Medea by Franz Grillparzer as a basis for the work, [1] the last part of Grillparzer's trilogy Das goldene Vließ (The Golden Fleece ) which is focused on Greek mythology and based on the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes and Medea by Euripides. [1] [2]
The opera was successfully premiered at the Vienna State Opera in February 2010, [1] staged by Marco Arturo Marelli, conducted by Michael Boder, with Marlis Petersen in the title role. [1] The German premiere was at the Oper Frankfurt in August 2010. [3]
| Role | Voice type | Premiere cast, 28 February 2010 Conductor: Michael Boder [1] [4] |
|---|---|---|
| Medea | coloratura soprano | Marlis Petersen |
| Kreusa | mezzo-soprano | Michaela Selinger |
| Gora | contralto | Elisabeth Kulman |
| Kreon | tenor | Michael Roider |
| Jason | baritone | Adrian Eröd |
| The Herald | countertenor | Max Emanuel Cenčić |
Grillparzer showed Medea as a foreigner without protection who becomes the victim of powerful men, a view of the tragedy appealing to Reimann. [5] In a performance at the Komische Oper Berlin, staged by Benedict Andrews with Nicole Chevalier in the title role, Medea is shown as a barbarian woman, a stranger to the society and therefore expelled. [6]
A reviewer of the premiere notes that the vocal lines are highly ornamented, full of melisma, and with sharply jagged contours ("wild gezackt, scharf geschnitten"), demanding virtuosity from the singers. The metre changes without rest, also in the orchestra. The strings are divided multiple times, while the winds often have solo function. The vocal style was described as highly artificial ("hochartifiziell"). [1]
Michael Andreas Gielen was an Austrian conductor and composer known for promoting contemporary music in opera and concert. Principally active in Europe, his performances are characterized by precision and vivacity, aiding his ability to interpret the complex contemporary music he specialized in.
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Aribert Reimann was a German composer, pianist, and accompanist, known especially for his literary operas. His version of Shakespeare's King Lear, the opera Lear, was written at the suggestion of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who performed the title role. His opera Medea after Grillparzer's play premiered in 2010 at the Vienna State Opera. He was a professor of contemporary Lied in Hamburg and Berlin. In 2011, he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize for his life's work.
Marlis Petersen is a German operatic coloratura soprano.
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Tanja Ariane Baumgartner is a German operatic mezzo-soprano. A member of the Oper Frankfurt since 2009, she has enjoyed an international career, appearing in major European and American opera houses and the Salzburg Festival.
Claudia Barainsky is a German operatic soprano. She has performed internationally, and won awards for her roles in contemporary operas such as Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Die Soldaten and Aribert Reimann's Medea.
Nicole Chevalier is an American operatic soprano, who debuted at the renowned Salzburg Festival in the summer of 2019. She was a member of the Komische Oper Berlin, and has been a freelance artist since 2017. Her repertoire includes bel canto as well as Mozart heroines such as Verdi's La Traviata, Donizetti's Maria Stuarda and Lucia di Lammermoor, Mozart's Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Elettra in Idomeneo, and stretches till Aribert Reimann's Medea. In 2016, she was awarded the German National Theatre prize Der Faust for all four female characters in Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann.
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Elisabeth Kulman is an Austrian classical singer who has performed operatic roles in soprano, mezzo-soprano and contralto repertory. She has appeared at opera houses in Vienna and internationally. She has performed early operas such as Legrenzi's Il Giustino as well as new works, creating the role of Gora in the premiere of Reimann's Medea at the Vienna State Opera. She recorded Lieder by Mussorgsky, Bach's Christmas Oratorio with Peter Schreier and Beethoven's Missa solemnis with Nikolaus Harnoncourt. From 2015, she has focused on concert singing.
Marco Arturo Marelli is a Swiss set designer and stage director who has worked at European opera houses for opera and ballet. He designed sets for ballets by John Neumeier, and for premieres of the operas Thomas Chatterton by Matthias Pintscher at the Semperoper in Dresden (1998) and Medea by Aribert Reimann at the Vienna State Opera (2010).
Joan Carroll is an American operatic coloratura soprano who appeared in the title role of Alban Berg's Lulu at the work's US premiere at the Santa Fe Opera in 1963, and often in opera houses in Europe. She premiered vocal music by Aribert Reimann and Wilhelm Killmayer, among others.
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Reimann's work, following Franz Grillparzer's Medea (1820), the primary source for the libretto, can safely be ascribed to the second type. Reimann's social and political interpretation of Medea's magical abilities allows him to reflect on the violence of the power that fears and distrusts – but at the same time needs – the unknown, the foreigner.
Uraufführung: 28. Februar 2010 Wien, Staatsoper (A)
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