A highly dramatic opera which portrays one of the most exciting female figures in world literature with unusually varied colours: “Médée” develops from deceived woman to frightening witch in Marc Antoine Charpentier’s tragic opera. His only tragédie composed for the Académie royale de musique was premiered on 4 December 1693 in Paris. To contemporaries, his fundamentally renewed musical language with great harmonic richness, a developed counterpoint and a colourful use of the orchestra sounded insufficiently like Lully. Now a new benchmark edition invites rediscovery of this work. It will be used for the first time on 19 November 2023 at the Staatsoper Berlin for a staged production conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and directed by Peter Sellars.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s only opera composed for the Académie royale de musique, “Médée”, to a libretto by Thomas Corneille, premiered in Paris on 4 December 1693. Following the death of his patron, Madame de Guise, in 1688, Charpentier had held various posts as master of music in Jesuit establishments in Paris, devoting himself to the composition of religious music. He also gave lessons to the Duc de Chartres. After Lully’s death in 1687, Paris Opera gradually opened its theatre to new composers. Like his colleagues Collasse and Desmarets, Charpentier was tempted by the idea of producing a grand opera on one of the most prestigious stages in the kingdom. Although it followed the model of the “tragédie en musique”, a genre invented by Philippe Quinault and Jean-Baptiste Lully, the work was poorly received by the public and was given only ten performances. Yet the work is striking for its strength and singularity in the corpus of post-Lully French opera.

Corneille’s excellent libretto remains one of the rare French lyric poems of the period to dare so much in the tragic vein (the fifth act does not end with the usual happy ending), while developing a psychological dimension that was rare for the period. The character of Medea in particular evolves from a betrayed woman to a fearsome sorceress. While her vengeance increases with each act, her ardor sometimes wanes to show a human face. Although Pierre Corneille’s “Médée” overshadowed its lyrical counterpart, it was not the libretto that was the main target of criticism. Attacks were directed at Charpentier’s music, which the public found far removed from the Lullist aesthetic. Lecerf de La Viéville, a fervent supporter of Lully, spoke of a “nasty opera”. It is true that the composer profoundly renewed the language with a richer harmonic palette than Lully’s, a developed contrapuntal structure and a more colorful use of the orchestra (use of mutes, flute basses…). At the time, this style was considered Italian. This label was easy to attach to Charpentier, who had studied composition in Rome with Carissimi. Sébastien de Brossard, an Italianophile, naturally felt that “Médée” was “the greatest of all operas, without exception, in which one can learn more of the essentials of good composition”. Some of the opera’s most intense parts, such as Medea’s aria “Quel prix de mon amour ! quell fruit de mes forfaits !” (Act III, sc. 3), or Creon’s death “Noires divinités, que voulez-vous de moi ?” (Act IV, sc. 9) bear witness to a mastery of composition combined with an undeniable sense of drama.

Because of its musical and literary qualities, “Médée” is undoubtedly one of the most frequently performed French Baroque operas after the Ramiste corpus. To date, however, there is no recent, readily available edition. The one we are currently preparing for Bärenreiter is based on the general score printed by Ballard, the only authoritative source of the work. Although a few manuscript excerpts do exist, they appear in secondary sources with no connection to Charpentier.

The work was published a year after its premiere and seems to have been slightly revised by the composer, unless these changes were the result of alterations made during rehearsals and performances. The edition points out these discrepancies. It also proposes a return to Corneille’s more forceful text, which has sometimes changed slightly. The spelling of the libretto has been completely modernized to make it easier for non-French-speaking musicians to read. The edition also attempts to clarify incomplete or inconsistent information in the Ballard source concerning ornamentation, orchestration and basso continuo figures. It also clarifies certain scenographic information not always clearly mentioned in the sources. Finally, the presentation is adapted to the new demands and knowledge of early music performers, and should make this edition of “Médée” the reference edition.

Thomas Soury
(from "[t]akte" 2023)