Cherubini – Médée

Médée – Maria Pia Piscitelli
Jason – Stanislas de Barbeyrac
Créon – Nahuel Di Pierro
Dircé – Martina Russomanno
Neris – Ambroisine Bré
Confidantes de Dircé – Greta Doveri, Mara Gaudenzi

Coro del Teatro alla Scala, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala / Michele Gamba.
Stage director – Damiano Michieletto.

Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Italy.  Saturday, January 20th, 2024.

This new production of Médée at the Teatro alla Scala represents an anniversary of sorts, coming as it does 70 years after the legendary production of the work in Italian translation, featuring Maria Callas and her American compatriot Leonard Bernstein back in the 1953 – 54 season.  A production that did so much to bring this work back into the repertoire.  Indeed, this is one of a string of productions of Médée this season, with others in Madrid and Toronto respectively.  In the title role this evening, we were due to hear Marina Rebeka (pictured).  Unfortunately, Rebeka was unwell and the theatre managed to find Maria Pia Piscitelli who took on the highly demanding title role on only twenty-four hours’ notice.

It is much to Piscitelli’s credit that she felt fully part of Damiano Michieletto’s staging, even if, according to the announcement from the stage, she had only rehearsed it for a day.  Over the years, Cherubini’s opéra comique has been given in various versions – in the original French with dialogues, in Italian with recitatives.  Michieletto finds an intriguing solution for the work.  He intersperses the musical numbers with dialogues spoken by Médée’s children in voiceover, by actors Timothée Nessi and Sofia Barri, while two child actors, Tobia Pintor and Giada Riontino, incarnate the children on stage.  This feels like quite an ingenious solution.  By bringing out the children’s inner thoughts, Michieletto humanizes the drama, allowing us to the see the events through the children’s eyes, which makes the ultimate sacrifice that Médée makes even more potent and shocking. 

Michieletto sets the drama in a pristine palace, where the cast wear attractive, colourful clothes, with sets and costumes by Paolo Fantin and Carla Teti.  As the evening progresses, the set gradually disintegrates, reflecting the disintegrating world of the palace as Médée’s vengeance manifests itself.  There are some extremely striking visuals – Médée being chased by the men of the palace with sticks that are piled up as a pyre; Médée writing ‘maman vous aime’ at the back of the set, which then cracked open as the children were poisoned; or the way that a huge quantity of rocks fell on the stage as Dircé expired.  I found Michieletto’s vision and execution to be extremely compelling.  And yet, I left the theatre with a sense that this isn’t one of his vintage stagings.  What I appreciate most about Michieletto’s work is his ability to make you feel, to fully bring out the emotional impact of a work.  Tonight, I didn’t really feel as emotionally struck as I have on previous occasions with him.  Of course, this could be due, understandably so, to the last-minute substation in the title role.  Yet, Piscitelli was nothing if not extremely dedicated.  There was undoubtedly a sense of dark foreboding in Michieletto’s reading and interactions between characters were incredibly clear.  I just had an overwhelming feeling that this was a more cerebral and intelligent reading than emotionally charged as I have come to expect from him.

Musically, there were some elements to enjoy.  The quality of the playing that Michele Gamba obtained from the Scala orchestra was excellent.  He used a relatively small string section (around 8 first violins if my counting of seats in the pit during intermission was correct).  He also asked the strings to play with minimal vibrato, which gave the string sound a nicely lean edge.  The downside is that there was a lack of volume and, from my seat in the centre of the platea at the side, the strings were frequently drowned out by the enthusiastic timpani.  Gamba focused on classical beauty of phrasing, there was an elegance there that was most agreeable.  Yet I found his reading to be rather genteel and lacking in dynamism.  I longed for him to really use the orchestral textures to power the drama forward – although the Act 3 prelude found him more engaged in that respect.  The solo bassoon played with genuine elegance in Néris’ aria.  The Scala chorus has made huge improvements under the direction of Alberto Malazzi.  Tonight, the sopranos sang with focused tone and excellent intonation, with a stylishness of phrasing that matched what we heard from the pit. 

Another positive was the quality of the diction throughout the entire cast.  What a pleasure it was to hear an opera en français and not have to refer to the seatback titles.  Piscitelli incarnated her role with extreme dedication.  She more than deserved the ovation she received at the end for giving so much and on such little rehearsal.  Piscitelli threw herself into Michieletto’s staging – her scruffy costume contrasting with the smart dress of the remainder of the cast.  Her soprano has an attractive creamy core, yet from my seat, she wasn’t always fully audible.  Her French is good, a few diphthongs that were from south of the Alps excepted, and a few very small textual mistakes were completely forgivable given the circumstances.  She has the measure of the role, although I imagine would be more optimally cast in a smaller house, and her determination inspired admiration. 

As Jason, Stanislas de Barbeyrac sounded that he needed a little while to find his optimal form, the top initially sounding as if walking a tightrope, the support sounding somewhat tight.  Once fully warmed up, he sang his music with golden tone and a grateful sense of line – not to mention impeccable clarity of diction – sustaining the high-lying music with warmth and ease, the registers fully integrated.  Nahuel Di Pierro brought his usual charismatic stage presence to the role of Créon, here a constant presence on stage.  Di Pierro is a singer who has given me a huge amount of pleasure in the theatre on previous occasions.  Here, however, I do wonder if he was most optimally cast.  His diction was excellent, but his bass is somewhat soft-grained, lacking in the full sepulchral amplitude for the role, although he did bring an admirable sense of line to his music.  Again, in a smaller house, this might have worked better.

Martina Russomanno sang Dircé’s music with excellent diction.  Indeed, I was surprised to read in the program book that she’s Italian as I was expecting her to be francophone based on the clarity she brought to the text.  Her soprano is lean and agile, somewhat narrow, but with a diamantine core – although the top doesn’t optimally spin at this point in time.  Ambroisine Bré sang Néris’ beautiful aria in a chestnut-toned mezzo, again rather narrow in tone, while being bright and focused.  The two Confidantes were mellifluously sung by Greta Doveri and Mara Gaudenzi, both attractively vocalized.

Tonight’s Médée felt like one of those evenings that had many good aspects, with others that didn’t quite cohere.  The biggest strength of Michieletto’s staging is the clarity of its storytelling.  He sets out the events of the plot with a clear sense of logic and, by putting the children at the heart of his narrative vision, does bring the story to life in a compelling way.  Combined with some extremely striking stage pictures, we are given an evening that offers much.  Musically, however, I found the evening not quite to cohere, with conducting that privileged classical beauty over dynamism and singing that was dedicated, if rough around the edges.  The audience responded at the close with a well-deserved generous ovation for Piscitelli and relatively warm applause for the remainder of the cast.