Ep. 128 Médée (Medea) by Charpentier

Summary

Opera For Everyone Podcast Episode 128 Summary: "Médée (Medea) by Charpentier"

Release Date: March 23, 2025
Podcast Title: Opera For Everyone
Host: Pat Wright
Guest Host: Petria Fasso
Air Time: Sundays, 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Broadcast Station: 89.1 KHOL, Jackson, Wyoming
Cover Artwork: Rosie Brooks (www.rosiebrooks.com)

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Introduction

In Episode 128 of Opera For Everyone, host Pat Wright welcomes back guest co-host Petria Fasso to delve into Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Baroque opera "Médée" (Medea). The episode offers an in-depth exploration of this lesser-performed French opera, discussing its historical context, plot intricacies, musical composition, and dramatic performances.

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Historical and Musical Context

[02:06 - 04:18]
Petria Fasso introduces "Médée", composed by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, premiered on December 4, 1693, at the Academy Royale de Musique during Louis XIV's reign. The opera's libretto was penned by Thomas Corneille, a contemporary of Charpentier and brother to the renowned dramatists Racine and Molière. Charpentier, primarily known for his sacred music and incidental scores for French dramas, ventured into opera at a time when Jean-Baptiste Lully dominated the French operatic scene.

Pat Wright emphasizes Louis XIV's profound influence on the arts, notably music and dance, which are integral to French opera's structure. "Médée" adheres to the classic French opera format of a prologue followed by five acts, featuring instrumental music, singing, dancing, and intense drama.

Quote:
Pat Wright (00:46):
"The structure is a prologue and five acts. So it's quite a night of music. Instrumental music, singing, dancing and heart rending drama."

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Plot Overview

The podcast meticulously outlines the opera's narrative, paralleling Greek mythology. Medea, a granddaughter of Helios and a sorceress, assists her husband Jason in obtaining the Golden Fleece, a task fraught with peril and divine intervention. Their journey results in Medea committing heinous acts, including killing her brother and betraying her uncle Pelias, to secure Jason's success.

Key Plot Points:

1. Act 1:

   • Setting: Corinth, during a decade-long calm in Jason and Medea's marriage.
   • Conflict: Medea senses Jason's waning love and potential infatuation with Creusa, King Creon's daughter. Creon plans to banish Medea to protect his realm from her vengeful past deeds.

2. Act 2:

   • Divertissement: Features chorus and dance portraying public sentiments in Corinth, juxtaposing personal turmoil with communal concerns.

3. Act 3:

   • Medea's Vengeance: Medea transforms into a formidable sorceress, enlisting demons to infuse a poisonous dress intended for Creusa, signaling her shift from a wronged wife to a vengeful force.

4. Act 4:

   • Magic and Madness: Creon succumbs to Medea's enchantments, descending into madness, while Medea's plans intensify.

5. Act 5:

   • Climactic Tragedy: Medea's poison leads to devastating consequences, culminating in the tragic demise of Creusa and the unraveling of Corinth.

Quote:
Petria Fasso (16:07):
"So they end up in Corinth, and they actually have a pretty nice 10 years of marriage. But then Acastes is mobilizing an army to go and find them. So the King Creon is nervous about that."

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Character Analysis

• Medea:
  A complex protagonist grappling with love, betrayal, and vengeance. Her descent into darkness is central to the opera's tragic arc. As a sorceress, her supernatural abilities underscore her agency and the opera's Baroque fascination with magic and divine intervention.

• Jason:
  The archetypal hero whose ambition leads him to forsake Medea for political alliance with Creusa. His actions catalyze Medea's wrath, portraying the fragility of honor and love.

• Creon:
  The king of Corinth whose political maneuvers to secure his realm inadvertently ignite Medea's vendetta. His initial authority is undermined by Medea's sorcery, illustrating the limits of power.

• Creusa:
  Creon's daughter, caught in the crossfire of political and romantic rivalries. Her tragic end epitomizes the opera's exploration of innocent suffering amidst power struggles.

• Oronte:
  A prince of Argos, presented as a rival suitor to Creusa. His position amplifies Medea's isolation and the opera's themes of rivalry and revenge.

Quote:
Petria Fasso (25:35):
"So she's warning him, she's threatening him? I would say warning, threatening."

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Musical and Production Highlights

The hosts discuss the Baroque musical elements inherent in Charpentier's composition, including elaborate choruses, divertissements, and the integration of dance as a narrative device. Les Arts Florissant, under the direction of William Christie, performs the highlighted recording. Christie, recognized for reviving Baroque operas, brings authenticity to Charpentier's work, making it accessible to modern audiences.

Notable Musical Features:

• Overture and Aria: The opera begins with a prologue honoring Louis XIV, followed by arias that convey characters' emotions and motivations.

• Divertissements: Each act concludes with musical interludes featuring dance and chorus, reflecting French operatic tradition and providing a lyrical respite from the unfolding drama.

• Transformation Scenes: Medea's metamorphosis is musically represented by shifts in tone, orchestration, and vocal intensity, highlighting her descent into vengeance.

Quote:
Pat Wright (39:28):
"Well, there are some treasures there on YouTube for, you know, free for the watching. So if it's still up when you're listening to this, please just Google Medee."

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Insights and Discussions

Pat and Petria draw parallels between the opera's portrayal of Medea and the historical context of witchcraft hysteria in the late 17th century, notably the Salem Witch Trials (1692-1693). The opera's emphasis on Medea's sorcery and the ensuing fear reflects societal anxieties about female power and supernatural influence.

Key Insights:

• Gender and Power: Medea's character embodies societal fears of powerful, independent women capable of disrupting patriarchal norms.

• Divine Intervention: The opera intertwines human emotions with divine machinations, emphasizing the interplay between fate, gods, and personal agency.

• Cultural Stereotypes: Creusa's labeling of Medea as a "barbarian" underscores cultural prejudices and the stigmatization of the 'other.'

Quote:
Pat Wright (84:09):
"Another divertissement."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

1. On Opera Structure:
   Pat Wright (00:46-00:52):
   "The prologue, which was, well, obligatory at this point, is very much a way to honor and flatter the king."

2. On Medea's Transformation:
   Petria Fasso (16:07):
   "He envies you. Though I will say, as of the moment of this recording, that particular production that you saw in Paris in 2024 is up on YouTube with English subtitles."

3. On Medea's Vengeance:
   Petria Fasso (82:27):
   "Medea has known it all along, but now she says vengeance alone can be my concern."

4. On the Final Act:
   Pat Wright (110:48):
   "And this powerful sorceress does not merely find herself sad. She's ready for some revenge."

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Conclusion

Episode 128 of Opera For Everyone offers a comprehensive exploration of Marc-Antoine Charpentier's "Médée", unraveling its intricate plot, rich musicality, and profound themes of love, betrayal, and vengeance. Through engaging discussions and detailed plot analysis, hosts Pat Wright and Petria Fasso illuminate the opera's enduring relevance and emotional depth, making it accessible and compelling for both opera aficionados and newcomers alike.

Closing Statement from Hosts:
Pat Wright emphasizes the opera's profound drama and tragic beauty, while Petria expresses gratitude for the enlightening collaboration, highlighting the episode's role in demystifying Baroque opera for a broader audience.

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Transcript

[Pat Wright]

Welcome to another edition of Opera for Everyone. I'm your host, Pat Wright.

[Petria Fasso]

And I'm Petria Fasso, guest host.

[Pat Wright]

Yes, guest host. Patria, welcome back to Opera for Everyone. It's been quite some time since we've gotten to hear from you.

[Petria Fasso]

It is, has been. And I'm just delighted to be back.

[Pat Wright]

Yes, thank you so much. Opera for Everyone. Listeners will recall that Petria was that very brave soul who did the two hour coverage of the Ring. All of the operas in the Ring cycle together in one show to just give people a little taste of what they're in for if they decide to do the Ring.

[Petria Fasso]

And we thought maybe that would be appalling to real opera lovers. But I think you said it's one of your most listened to podcasts.

[Pat Wright]

Both things might be true, but I think a lot of people will want to experience that and it's just a nice compact introduction to some of the key points. So if you're wanting to listen to that one, that's episode 55, you have to go back a few years in the, in the archives. But episode 55, Petria and I talk about Wagner's Ring cycle, but we're in France today. Tell us about the opera we're going to be discussing.

[Petria Fasso]

Well, it's called Mede in French. It's Medea, a very popular subject, very complex character. It's been written about over time. And I think there's even a video game that she appears in now. I didn't know that kept coming up when I was googling her. So this was composed by Marc Antoine Charpentier, who lived in the 17th and early 18th century. The opera was first performed December 4, 1693 at the Academy Royale de Musique. And that was during the reign of Louis xiv. And one of his brothers apparently was a patron of this opera.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah, and Louis XIV himself was quite the opera lover. Even as a boy, he would dance in some of the dance portions of operas. I mentioned this in the episode that I did with Grant on Zoroaster. That was episode 122, also a French opera in the next century after this one. But Louis XIV was a major patron of the arts, in particular music. He just loved it. And music and dancing both have a strong history in France within the court and royal circles.

[Petria Fasso]

And the librettist was Thomas Corneille, pretty much a contemporary of Marc Antoine Charpentier.

[Pat Wright]

Just a little bit older. And he had a very famous brother who was one of the three great dramatists along with Racine and Moliere. They were dramatists who used incidental music. And a lot of what, Charpentier, our Charpentier here, a lot of what he did before he actually did these lyrical tragedies, as they called these operas, was he wrote some of the incidental music for dramas in France.

[Petria Fasso]

Interesting. So I don't think this opera is actually performed that often.

[Pat Wright]

That's true. But it's magnificent when it is performed. And you had the good fortune of seeing it live.

[Petria Fasso]

I did. In Paris in April 2024.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah. I. I envy you. Though I will say, as of the moment of this recording, that particular production that you saw in Paris in 2024 is up on YouTube with English subtitles.

[Petria Fasso]

And it's fabulous to be able to see up close some of the action on the stage, which I only saw from quite far away in the beautiful Paris Opera House.

[Pat Wright]

Yes, yes. Yeah, There are some treasures there on YouTube for, you know, free for the watching. So if it's still up when you're listening to this, please just Google Medee. It's M E D E E Charpentier. Look at the one that says it's from Paris and it has English subtitles and I think you'll enjoy it.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes, yes.

[Pat Wright]

So before we hear some music, let's just talk a little bit about the structure of this particular opera. It is in the classic style of opera that Lully. We'll speak about him a little bit later. But the well known and highly prestigious opera composer that preceded Charpentier in France. In fact, the structure is a prologue and five acts. So it's quite a night of music. Instrumental music, singing, dancing and heart rending drama. I would say.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes.

[Pat Wright]

The prologue, which was, well, obligatory at this point, is very much a way to honor and flatter the king, King Louis xiv in this case. He is praised in this prologue. It's not terribly long and the modern productions don't even include the prologue and they jump right into the action. Let's hear a little bit of the overture and then, Petria, I'm going to ask you to help us out with some backstory before we begin the action of the opera.

[Petria Fasso]

Okay.

[Pat Wright]

The mood is set and now we are ready to begin Act 1 of Maya. And there is definite backstory that we want to know before we jump into the story that this opera is presenting.

[Petria Fasso]

Let me tell you who some of the main characters are. Medea, of course. Jason, who's her husband.

[Pat Wright]

Wait, Jason.

[Petria Fasso]

Jason.

[Pat Wright]

Famous in Greek myth.

[Petria Fasso]

In Greek myth for being an argonaut and for capturing the golden Fleece? Yes, it's very complicated. Let me just mention who the other main characters are. There is Creon, who is the king of Corinth, his daughter Creusa. And another important person is Orate, who is a prince of Argos.

[Pat Wright]

We'll meet him a little bit later in the first act.

[Petria Fasso]

A little bit later in the first act. So there are a couple of minor characters like Nerine, a nurse, and the play opens with. Or the opera opens with Medea speaking with Nerine, who's the nurse to her two boys.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah, and I'll say, just as a stagecraft element here, I think these minor characters that you mentioned are usually. The confidant of Medea has one. Nerine, Jason has a confidant, and the princess Creon's daughter, who we'll meet shortly, she also has a confidant. And that's for exposition. That's so they can talk out loud about what's going on in their lives. These are not characters in their own right. They are there to be talked to or to give information and also advice.

[Petria Fasso]

They act as counterpoints to these main characters, trying to, I think, steer them in the right direction. Unsuccessfully in a lot of cases. So the first act starts with Medea speaking with Nerine, the nurse. And right away, Medea says love is never mistaken. She says Jason has no gratitude, he swears false, and her love for him knows that. And it's her love that is not mistaken in sensing this about Jason.

[Pat Wright]

Okay, so right off the bat, there's trouble in paradise between Medea and Jason. But how did Medea and Jason end up becoming a couple in the first place?

[Petria Fasso]

Okay, this is the backstory. So Jason, as I said before, is one of the Argonauts, and, you know.

[Pat Wright]

The leader of the Argonauts. The leader. I understand it.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes, absolutely. There's a lot of Greek myths, Greek characters in here, and then there are some Greek gods as well. Jason, when he was born, was sent away from his home because there was a prophecy that he would be killed. So he was sent to live with a centaur named Chiron who raised him, and his uncle Pelias stole the throne from Jason's father. So Jason goes back to Iolcus, where his father really was the rightful king, and confronts Pelias. In the meantime, Hera, who was Zeus's main wife, the queen of the gods.

[Pat Wright]

And the protector of marriage, among other.

[Petria Fasso]

Things, might come up women and childbirth. So Hera. And this reminds me of the Wagner that you mentioned with a little, like, fricka Fricka, Exactly.

[Pat Wright]

Or we should say Fricka's a little.

[Petria Fasso]

Like, yeah, yeah, Hera came first. And Jason has some godlike background. I believe that Hermes, who was a son of Zeus but not by Hera, was his maternal great grandfather.

[Pat Wright]

But Jason's not an immortal.

[Petria Fasso]

No, he's definitely not an immortal.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah, like a lot of these, some.

[Petria Fasso]

Of them quasi half gods were immortal. Mortal.

[Pat Wright]

Hercules also had godlike powers. And Hercules was one of the guys who was on that ship, was an Argonaut.

[Petria Fasso]

So Pelias says to Jason, oh, sure, you can have the throne back that's really yours, but here you have to go and find this Golden Fleece. So Jason and the Argonauts head out and they have a lot of adventures on the way and they're helped by some gods and goddesses, Hera in particular. In particular. And Hera actually did not like Pelias. He had insulted her at some point in the past. So I think in some ways she's using Jason to get back at Pelias.

[Pat Wright]

And she particularly liked Jason because on his trip back to, you know, from being raised, once he becomes an adult to confront his uncle, to take back his realm, she has disguised herself as this frail old woman looking helpless, needing to cross a river. And he offers to help, and he puts her on his shoulder and he walks across the river carrying her. It's more difficult than it sounds, though, because with every step she became heavier and heavier and heavier to the point where he lost one of his sandals in the mud. And that was the tip off to Pelias that I got to get rid.

[Petria Fasso]

Of this guy, because the prophecy had said that a man with one sandal would come to claim the throne. But it was one of the situations where a God is testing the human by making herself heavier and heavier and he doesn't give up. So right away you learn something about Jason's persistence and courage and strength.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah. And the fact that he's the leader of all these heroes who man his ship tells you something about his capabilities as well.

[Petria Fasso]

So this Golden Fleece that he's after, I believe it's guarded by a sleeping dragon, but it's a symbol of power and it is right now the Golden Fleece is being guarded by this dragon on the island of Colchis. And the king there is Aeetes. The heroes are from Greece. This is somewhere in Asia Minor. And the daughter of Aeetes is our heroine, Medea.

[Pat Wright]

We could use maybe a different word.

[Petria Fasso]

But our main character, our main character so Medea actually is a granddaughter of Helios, the sun God. So she has some, some godlike background as well, but she is also immortal. So Hera, because she's putting favor on Jason, convinces Aphrodite, who is the goddess of love and whose son is Eros, to cause Medea to fall in love with Jason.

[Pat Wright]

That's right. Eros, better known to us as Cupid.

[Petria Fasso]

Cupid Love. So he, he plays a part later in our, in our opera as well. So other famous gods and goddesses that Medea is related to are Circe, who is a witch that you may remember. Odysseus was stuck staying with her for several years.

[Pat Wright]

She's the one who turns the men who show up into pigs. Yes.

[Petria Fasso]

And it was also considered that Medea was a priestess of Hecate, who was into witchcraft and magic and the underworld.

[Pat Wright]

Right, Because Medea then is often referred to as a sorceress because even though she, she's mortal, she doesn't seem fully mortal in that she's got all these extraordinary supernatural powers. A sorceress.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes. So Medea, through the efforts of the gods, falls in love with Jason and helps him in his quest for the Golden Fleece.

[Pat Wright]

Well, that's putting it so mild.

[Petria Fasso]

Okay, I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you.

[Pat Wright]

Thank you.

[Petria Fasso]

So 80s Medea's father said, oh yeah, sure, you can have the fleece, but you have to do three tasks first. And the first one is to plow a field with fire breathing oxen, which of course would kill most people. But Medea provides Jason with a special ointment to protect him from the flaming fire breathing oxen.

[Pat Wright]

Nice to have a sorceress on your side.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes, definitely. The next one, he had to sew the teeth of a dragon in a field. And the problem was going to be that the dragon's teeth were going to turn into warriors and attack him and that would kill him. But Medea said, well, here's how you get around this one. You throw a rock into their midst, they won't know where the attack has come from and they'll turn on each other. And that also came to pass. Then finally, it was for the sleeping dragon, which was guarding the Golden Fleece, or sleepless dragon, sorry, does not ever sleep. But Medea was able to create a potion that caused the dragon to sleep long enough for Jason to grab the Golden Fleece. So when Aeetes finds out that Jason has gotten through these three trials and is now in possession of the Fleece.

[Pat Wright]

And we'll Just stop for a second to note that Peleus, who sent him on this quest, never thought he would return because this guy is the king. Aeetes is such a foul character and that he set up this essentially impossible quest. So these two powerful kings thought they could best Jason, but they couldn't because of the love and support of Medea and the gods that are behind both of them.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes. That's the only way they could have done it was the gods working through Medea, basically. But she really fell in love with him.

[Pat Wright]

Yes.

[Petria Fasso]

So they have to flee and her father is pursuing them. And the first boat that comes close to them actually has her brother in it. And this is when we get a foretaste of what Medea is capable of. She kills her brother and chops him up into pieces because she knows that their father will stop chasing them in order to gather all of the parts of his body in order to give him the proper kind of burial.

[Pat Wright]

I mean, that is a visual story because she doesn't just like plop all the pieces in the. She likes little by little drops the pieces into the water and the father does have to stop and gather it.

[Petria Fasso]

It's just unthinkable cruelty. And she's doing it because she's so in love with Jason. And they have a long journey back to. Back to Iolcus. And along the way they have to stop at Aunt Circe's house to be purified from this evil deed that she has done.

[Pat Wright]

Right. And Medea has to use a lot of her powers to keep the crewmen safe, to keep Jason safe. Because Cersei does not interact well with the men, sailors who show up. Typically.

[Petria Fasso]

Typically, yes. But apparently this time it was okay. So they go back to Iolcus and present the fleece to Peleus. But in the meantime, Medea tricked Pelias's daughters into believing that they can give him immortal life by cutting him into pieces. Here we have this chopping up theme and with herbs. Then he's reborn younger.

[Pat Wright]

That's what she tells them.

[Petria Fasso]

That's what she tells them. And they fell for it. She had made a demonstration with a ram, but. And they were very impressed. But unfortunately that didn't happen. So then Pelias's son becomes the king and Jason and Medea flee again.

[Pat Wright]

Right here Medea is trying to the way for him to reclaim his realm and she solved nothing, honestly, because she's so angered so many different areas that they. They need to go after him to get revenge.

[Petria Fasso]

So she is making enemies Everywhere she stops. And so Acastis is Pelias's son who's now pursuing her, who would be. He would be Jason's cousin, right?

[Pat Wright]

Yes.

[Petria Fasso]

So they end up in Corinth, and they actually have a pretty nice 10 years of marriage. But then Acastes is mobilizing an army to go and find them. So the King Creon is nervous about that.

[Pat Wright]

So when this opera opens, that's where we are. We are in Corinth. They've had this nice period of marriage. They have two children that they both love very much. And things are getting difficult in Corinth, and King Creon is worried about it. But the very first thing the opera lets us know is that Medea is feeling insecure about Jason's love for her.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes. So the King Creon has this beautiful daughter, Creusa, and a warrior from Argos, a prince of Argos named Oronte, is also is in love with Creusa. But the king wants both. He wants Orontes to come and help him against a possible attack by Acastes from Thessaly. And he also wants Jason because Jason is a proven hero. So he's kind of dangling his daughter in front of both men.

[Pat Wright]

Oh, definitely. Yes.

[Petria Fasso]

And Medea has sensed this. So as I said before, this very first line, one of the very first lines, she says to Neren, the nurse is, jason has no gratitude. Jason has no gratitude. He swears false. So that's why this backstory is so important to understand that Medea has really given her whole life and killed her brother and arranged for Jason's uncle to be killed. And she's made enemies everywhere. She keeps doing this with the support of the gods. Hera in particular, because she loves Jason so much. After having given her whole life to Jason, you can understand why she's hurt and really angry and gonna get back in touch with some of her powers if Jason doesn't stay true to her.

[Pat Wright]

Absolutely. So we're gonna listen to a little bit of Medea singing Let him be afraid of me if he is no longer true. And she's. She's saying this to her confidante, Nerine. And just a reminder, this is a Baroque period opera from 1693. So you will. You will hear that in this music. An angry Medea.

[C]

Sa.

[Pat Wright]

Now we have a sense of how angry Medea is. And the other voice in there is Nerina, her confidant. And those two voices together at the end of that clip we just played has Nerina cautioning Medea to keep it under Control. Try to reduce your anger. It might make things worse. Well, yeah, it might. New scene. Jason is going to show up and we are going to meet the famous Jason. The one who gets all the credit, honestly, for capturing the Golden Fleece. Never mind, that's part of the story here. Medea is underappreciated. She's also pretty brutal.

[Petria Fasso]

Well, Jason shows up and, you know, he didn't feel like a hero to me. I have to say he's kind of weaseling.

[Pat Wright]

Oh, in this opera? In this opera, definitely.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes. So Medea is already on edge and Jason shows up and he's giving her a long explanation. The king is very worried about Acostes and we have to think about our children and the princess will take care of them. And Medea's not really buying it. She says in order to gain her favor towards us, your over assiduous efforts should alarm you. Yeah, but Jason's not hearing her.

[Pat Wright]

No, no. In fact, he flat out denies it. You suspect me that it's just not true. He's protesting his innocence. Too much. Yes, too much.

[Petria Fasso]

So then she says, okay, whatever you say you need to do with the princess, that's fine with me. But whatever. The anger of heaven, remember that if I cannot feel trust in you, I have no need to fear its anger. The anger of heaven. So she's warning him, she's threatening him?

[Pat Wright]

I would say warning, threatening. I guess those are both the same thing in a way.

[Petria Fasso]

So that's the first scene where we see Jason and Medea together. I think it's important to imagine back to everything they've been through together and how things have changed, how his love for her seems to have faded partly through external circumstances, but she has been true to him. And she's definitely getting the sense that he's about to leave her for a younger woman.

[Pat Wright]

And she confronts him on this, he denies it flatly and then he tries to sweet talk her. Sweetheart, I'm only trying to help you and the children.

[Petria Fasso]

Right.

[Pat Wright]

She's not. For good reason. She's not really believing him. And we have that confirmed for us in the very next scene when Jason is speaking with his confidante.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes, this is a very hard scene to watch where he keeps talking about love and honor and his friend is reminding him about how much power Medea has and he's just. He's blinded by his attraction to the Princess Creusa.

[Pat Wright]

He is. And, and this piece that he is going to sing in his conversation with his confidant, he really spends a lot of time talking about honor. His honor as a soldier, potentially as a husband. Although he's not technically married to Medea, he's fathered her children. They're living together as a couple. Honor and what he has to do that Honor demands. And his passion, his love for this princess. And it is not an unrequited love. She returns the love to him. Let's just hear a little bit of him justifying his passion, because he definitely comes down on the side of love and passion and decides honor can just take care of itself.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes.

[C]

Am.

[Pat Wright]

We are listening to a French opera of the Baroque period, Marc Antoine Charpentiers, Mede Medea. And that was Jason, I would say, trying to justify the dangerous choice that he's about to make. He's been in a very committed, it seemed, coupling relationship, to use modern terminology, with Medea, has two children with her. But now he sees passion for this princess also. Also political advantage. By marrying this princess, there's no brother spoken of, so he would also be the heir to the throne here in Corinth if it all works out the way he wants it. And he's justifying this by saying, oh, it's illusions of honor, but love, that's what's really real. Well, with that out of the way, now we get to meet two of our characters that you let us know about. Creon, the king in this realm, in this place, Corinth, where they are staying, and Oronte, this is the other great military leader, and he has essentially been promised the hand of Creon's daughter, the very same Cayusa that Jason has fallen in love with. And he sees passion and he also sees military and political advantage in that alliance. He's a guy with a lot of swagger.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes. And depending on how the setting of the opera is, that swagger is sometimes played up for a little bit of comic effect.

[Pat Wright]

Right, right.

[Petria Fasso]

So you see that Crayon is flattering him, but Orante's sticking to the point, which is, I came here with a promise of your daughter. Right. Jason is also on the scene, and Creon assures Orante that Jason will help him.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah, it's interesting. Creon kind of puts Orante off just a little bit. He's like, yeah, yeah, we'll get to that. But you need to focus, and your main focus here needs to be defending my realm. There'll be nothing that matters left if my crown is not defended. And you and Jason are here for that very purpose.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes. So the next scene is a wonderful scene with a lot of Chorus and dancing with the armies. Crayon's army. Jason has people supporting him and Orontes has his people. And so you have a lot of celebrating of all these heroes imagining triumph that they're going to have against Acastis. It's a very happy scene.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah. I'm just going to play a little bit of this fanfare because I like it. We're moving from all of these people who are deeply worried about these very personal things. We're moving into a more public display of the concerns of the people at large in Corinth. So I'm going to play a little bit of this fanfare and then we're going to tell you about this final scene in the first act of our five act opera. We're ready for this end scene with a lot of chorus and also a lot of dancers on set. These representing the people of Corinth, representing this army that orante has brought with him. It's an interesting scene.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes. And they're talking about honor and love and they're imagining that the love is supporting the honor and the victory in the battle. But I think this is a bit ironic after we've seen Jason sort of giving up on honor in favor of love. So we'll see. If you don't have the two of them, you might run into trouble.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah, that's true. And just a comment here with this scene being the end scene of the first act. Every act of the five act opera, except the final and fifth act will conclude with a. What they would call in the French opera world, a divertissement, a diversion or. It feels like a little bit like you're coming away from the story. There's no progression of story really, but it's a spectacle. This is how you're working in all that dance, which is so important and so expected in French opera. Here it's all these people who are going to fight and the people who need to be defended and they're even going to do part of the dance, or at least what the libretto tells us needs to be part of. This dance is a mock battle among these warriors. And you have the chorus singing. So it really is very different in feeling from what we've seen before. And there will be three more of these ending the three acts, minus the fifth one, which just ends the story.

[Petria Fasso]

Could you tell me a little bit about the French opera and that structure that you're talking about? Because I'm not really familiar with it.

[Pat Wright]

Well, French opera develops a little bit differently. National opera in different places will develop Differently. I think a lot of us are familiar with the idea that opera really gets its beginnings in Italy. It's a group of people who are harking back, in fact, to ancient Greek times, when they would weave song into their storytelling and it develops into something entirely of its own. But opera, particularly here we're at the end of the 17th century, opera is seen as most fully developed in Italy. However, I mentioned Lully before. Lully was this. He was. He was actually born in Italy, but comes as a young man to Paris, and Lully becomes court composer and really gets a lock on opera in France at this time. And I mentioned earlier that the dancing was so important to it. Dancing was one of the court activities that was popular, not just because Louis xiii, Louis xiv, liked it. It was a way to express your social capabilities. It was a way to gain status and stature. And so Lully was very good at this. And he became a favorite of the court and a favorite of Louis xiv. And Louis xiv, I mentioned, loved dancing as well. And those two, they just grow up together in French opera. And there's a much stronger connection of having and requiring dance and opera in France than anywhere else. And it is a courtly endeavor for quite some time. Not that it wasn't performed for people to see outside of court life, but that was the heart of it. Lully had such a lock. L, U L, L Y is how his name is spelled. He had such a lock on the production of these works that it really strangled out any other composers. Our composer here, Charpentier, was working during the time that Lully was working, but it wasn't until Lully's death that he dared to present one of these lyrical tragedies, what we would call an opera. And his opera was not well received. He mostly followed the mold that Lully had created, but he didn't do everything exactly like Lully, particularly in composition, because there was some Italian influence. Charpentier had spent a few years in Italy studying this kind of music. But most of Charpentier's music prior to this was incidental music in plays and a tremendous amount of sacred music, which is a very traditional outlet for composers. Masses and liturgical works, hymns, psalms. So if you look up his works, it's an enormous list. But it's not until this opera, Medea, that he really puts on an opera that would have enraged the Lulistes, as they were called, as it was. They'd made trouble for him with the premiere of this.

[Petria Fasso]

Really?

[Pat Wright]

Yeah, yeah, they really did. And it's interesting because his Name is not as well known in terms of Baroque opera as Lully or Rameau, who comes afterwards. But Charpentier is right between the two. Chronologically, Rameau will become the big name next. But it's through the recording that we're listening to today. We'll give full credits at the beginning of the second half, as usual, but this. We're listening to a recording from Les Arts florissant, founded in 1979 by William Christie. He's a fellow who was born in New York State, but moved to France in the early 70s. And he becomes a big lover of, supporter of creator of productions of Baroque period music, and does tremendous amount for not just French opera, but also some Italian opera of this period and also English opera of this period. Side note, the name of the group, Les Arts Florissant, he takes that from the name of one of Lully's shorter, less well known operas. But the flourishing of the arts, it's really quite magical when you think about it. And many books that you read will credit this man, William Christie, with making it known to all of us that this work exists and how beautiful it can be. And in fact, he was the conductor that you saw.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes.

[Pat Wright]

In 2024.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes, that you can see on YouTube.

[Pat Wright]

That you can see on YouTube. I mean, it's really remarkable.

[Petria Fasso]

I think he's in his late 70s now.

[Pat Wright]

Anyway, that was more than what you asked for when you asked me to talk about why there's so much dance in French opera. But it's just part of the national heritage.

[Petria Fasso]

No, that was very important because in some ways it feels tacked on, I think, to the story. It's just very different from other operas that I've seen. So it's helpful to understand where it fits in the history.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah, it's part of the national tradition.

[Petria Fasso]

Should we hear the music?

[Pat Wright]

Yes. Let's hear a little bit of this choral work. Psyching themselves up for war, Defense of Corinth and victory.

[C]

SA.

[Pat Wright]

Act 1 is concluded of Medea by Marc Antoine charpentier. And Act 2 is ready to begin.

[Petria Fasso]

This is a very dramatic scene between the King Creon and Medea. She's been nervous that Jason's falling for the princess. And now the king comes to her and says that his people are worried that she is going to bring them misfortune because of her past bad deeds, which we talked about before, and he wants her to leave. And she's saying, is Jason ready to go away? I make it the sum of my happiness to follow him and the King's going, no. If he abandons me, what of his honor? And Medea says, if he abandons me, what of his love?

[Pat Wright]

Oh, there we are. Love and honor.

[Petria Fasso]

One more time. Again, again. And then the king is reminding Medea of her past misdeeds. And she says, well, why would they all be attributed to me? I committed them. But Jason was the one who benefited. So it's as if he committed them.

[Pat Wright]

Right.

[Petria Fasso]

But the king is adamant because he's worried about his people. They're murmuring about her. The reason Nakastes is coming after them is because she killed his, caused his father Pelias to be killed. She stole the help Jason steal the fleece. So the king of Corinth, Creon has given them shelter for 10 years, but now he says, no, you have to leave and you have to leave today. This is really quite a dramatic scene and I think a real turning point in the story.

[Pat Wright]

Right? Because it's not just suspicions that she has action is being put into place.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes.

[C]

Samaritan.

[Pat Wright]

Sara shut.

[C]

O.

[Petria Fasso]

Foreign.

[C]

Ra.

[Pat Wright]

Creon is not convinced by any of Medea's rationales for her actions or request to send Jason along with her. Because her bond is so strong with Jason, Creon is certain what needs to happen. Medea must leave because her presence is a threat to his realm and his kingdom and all the people that are in it. And Jason must remain behind to help the king. And at this point, Medea is going to have to deal with that information.

[Petria Fasso]

So the next scene is very short and very beautiful aria by Medea talking to the princess, asking her to take care of her children. Again, saying she's not mentioning Jason because he will preserve his honor. She hopes.

[Pat Wright]

She hopes. This is, to me was very touching because we're seeing her as a. As a mother appealing to the woman who is most likely to be in charge of her children.

[Petria Fasso]

And also, as we'll see later, too, she hasn't given up on Jason's love and getting him back.

[Pat Wright]

But here she's appealing to the princess to be a good person to her children.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes.

[C]

Sa Jesus, sa it.

[Pat Wright]

Appealing to Creusa is Medea's strategy in that scene. But then she's off stage and we see Creon and his daughter, this very same princess, and the interaction with them. If you didn't see it coming, it's all laid out for you right here.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes. Creon says, at last to your love, all hope is permitted. Your rival is making you ready to leave. And since your charms hold Jason in submission, you will be able to keep your conquest. But she actually pushes back a little bit. She says, love over all hearts gains victory, but it is sweet only when honor, to make it shine, obeys the laws of duty. So she's. She's a little queasy, it seems to me, about her father's plan, because she's betraying Orontes, who is in love with her. And she does love Jason. But I think she has a little bit of a guilt feeling there.

[Pat Wright]

There's a little bit of an expression of it here, for sure. Creon's very proud of himself. He's, look, sweetheart, look what I've done for you. And she does say, wait, but love is good. But duty matters as well. This love and honor, love and duty, it comes up throughout this opera. But the hesitation that she truly expresses here, she's going to get over that.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes, she is. Creon says, I do betray the hopes of Arante, but Jason's marriage holds you in my domain. And preferring his alliance, Jason's, I give you and I do not lose you.

[Pat Wright]

Yes, because as we said, it was politically advantageous for Jason to make this marriage. I may not be wise in the long run because his other love is going to be a scorned sorceress. However, at the moment.

[Petria Fasso]

A scorned sorceress.

[Pat Wright]

However, at the moment, we have Creon saying, it's all working out splendidly. I've banished Medea, so she's out of the picture, he thinks, and he's told his daughter the good news. And in comes Jason to also receive the good news.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes, this is sort of a love scene between Jason and Creuse, talking about imperious love, respecting no one. And both of them saying that before they met each other, they had tranquil hearts. And now they sort of wish they still well. Creoso says, sweet repose, abandon me. Never come back. So they are acknowledging how this passion is really has disturbed them, but they still can't look away. They are just. They're just in it.

[Pat Wright]

They are very much in it. And we're going to listen to a little bit of this love scene as close as we're going to get to a real love scene between Jason and Creusa where they talk about their absolute passion for each other. Don't be afraid, my darling. It doesn't matter. We love each other. It's all going to be fine. We must submit to this powerful force of love.

[C]

La Foreign.

[Pat Wright]

You'Re listening to Opera for Everyone, a radio show and podcast that embraces drama and story through love of Music Opera for Everyone airs Sundays from 9 to 11am Mountain Time on 89.1 Khol, Jackson, Wyoming's only community radio station. If you'd like to hear more conversations about opera, please join us on the Opera for Everyone podcast. And if you subscribe and rate us, you'll be helping with our mission to bring opera to everyone by helping others find this show. Stay with us. The second half of today's show is coming right up. Welcome back to the second half of Opera for Everyone. I'm Pat Wright and I am here with the magnificent Petrella Fossil Petria. Thank you so much for all your help with this opera.

[Petria Fasso]

So fun to do this with you.

[Pat Wright]

I couldn't agree more. There are a couple things we must do before we get back to our story. First and foremost, we want to thank the people involved in creating this beautiful cd. This is a performance by Les Art Florissant under the direction of its founder, William Christie. And as we mentioned before, what a magnificent role he is playing for music lovers far and wide, making these pieces of music from the Baroque period available to us.

[Petria Fasso]

The singers were Mede, Lorraine Hunt, Jason Mark Padmore, Crayon, Bernard de la Treuse, Monique Zanetti, Oronte, Jean Marc Saltzman, Nerine Noemi Rehm, Cleon Isabel des Rocher Arcus, Francois Bazola.

[Pat Wright]

Thank you one and all for this wonderful opera that we're getting to enjoy. What a story this is. And speaking of the story, this is opera helmet quiz time, wherein we ask you to do, and I'm going to ask you, Patria, to do it, a recap of what we've learned so far in our story.

[Petria Fasso]

Okay, so we open with Medea. Remember, she was the one that helped Jason get his Golden Fleece, but created a lot of enemies for herself along the way, having murdered her brother and stolen this fleece and caused the death of Jason's uncle. So now they're in Corinth and she's sensing that Jason is not in love with her anymore, that he might have another love interest. And meanwhile, Acastes, who is Jason's cousin, is mustering troops to move against Corinth in order to get revenge for the deaths in his family. So Creon, the king of Corinth, has a beautiful daughter, Creusa, and he has promised her to Jason, but he has also promised her to Orontes, who is another ally. He's a prince of Argos. So all of this is in the beginning, Medea was sort of suspicious, but then Creon, the king comes to her and says I have to have you leave. My people in my country are worried that you're bringing misfortune on us because of your bad deeds. So she. She talks to the princess and says, please save my children. But it's very clear that Creon has a plan in mind, and that's for her to marry Jason and stay in Corinth. And so basically, Medea and Orontes, who's also in love with the princess, are being pushed out by Creon, King Creon's plan. Yeah, we'll see coming up, the fallout from this plan.

[Pat Wright]

Thank you so much. Well, where we left our story was this scene of love and passion that they felt they couldn't deny and must honor between Jason and the princess. Creusa, in pretty short order, Orante is going to show up, and Creusa's got to figure out how to handle him.

[Petria Fasso]

She's pretty non committal and sort of subtle. But then we have this next scene of Cupid or Eros coming.

[Pat Wright]

Oh, another act ending divertissement. Another one of these scenes with choral pieces. And this one is fantastical. This one is not grounded in the reality of this world in Corinth.

[Petria Fasso]

It's one of many scenes that later in the opera also are kind of.

[Pat Wright]

More magical, tapping into more of those mythological figures. And in this case, the lead character being Cupid.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes. And Cupid, remember, was involved earlier on in causing Medea to fall in love with Jason in order to help him with his quest for the Golden Fleece. So we have Cupid back, and Cupid is very demanding. And so he takes Creusa and Jason and Orontes off in his chariot and expects Creusa to decide on which one at the end. And she doesn't?

[Pat Wright]

No, no. And it's a very interesting piece. I think it's one where you just sit back in your seat and enjoy the spectacle because we do have this beautiful choral singing. We have some solos, we have some duets, and plenty of dancing, of course, as I promised to end each act except the final act. So let's hear a little bit of these voices and don't worry too much about what they're saying, because it is a thing unto itself. But just the power of Cupid is what you need to recognize.

[Petria Fasso]

And isn't it in Italian, too?

[Pat Wright]

Oh, yes, there's a. There's a piece. Part of it. Part of it is in Italian. One of the pieces, a captive maiden, meaning someone who's a captive of love, sings about the exquisite suffering that love can bring. And it's done In Italian, which is a little bit, I would say, of Charpentier showing his familiarity with the Italian opera tradition.

[Petria Fasso]

I was wondering about.

[C]

It. Namaj ra.

[Pat Wright]

And that was from the very end of the second act, that wonderful divertissement.

[Petria Fasso]

And at the end, you know, Cupid's expecting this answer from, from Creusa and she, she walks off. But she says in vain does Cupid importune me. Let a lover succeed in gaining esteem through everything that glory adds to true merit and he is sure to win love unto himself. So I don't know that she's trying to string the two lovers along. I think she's really trying to sort of do the right thing and make sure that they do what they're supposed to do. I don't know. I still feel like she's pushing back against her father's plan.

[Pat Wright]

Well, I mean, I think at the end of the day, the person she loves most is her father. And so she understands that these two military men doing their honor will help her father.

[Petria Fasso]

That's a really interesting point. I hadn't thought about that because I, I do think that of the two of them, she does prefer Jason.

[Pat Wright]

Oh yeah.

[Petria Fasso]

But knows that it's a bit problematic because she's taking him away from Medea. But I think you're right about her father. I think you're absolutely right about that. I think that's a really central point in the relationships of these characters.

[Pat Wright]

Yes, and the chorus tells us at the end there that, well, Cupid, your triumph is assured. Because as we said before, in this contest between love and honor, love is going to be the powerful force. Although might be a little bit of self destructive passion. All right, time for act three of our five act opera. In this first scene of the third act, Orante and Medea are going to have a chance to talk to one another.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes. And Medea gives Oronte the bad news that the two of them are being pushed aside. At first he doesn't believe it, but then he's, he realizes that observations he's been making, it all kind of fits, right?

[Pat Wright]

That this princess that he loves and the one who has been promised to him by her father, that promise is not true. Creon does not mean to honor the promise. But then he says, well, okay, we're. We've both been pushed out of the relationships that we want, but that doesn't really make us allies. But Medea seeks to comfort him on that score.

[Petria Fasso]

Well, they sing together. Nothing can approach the despair of being betrayed by the person one loves.

[Pat Wright]

And Medea will say to him, let's unite. I've been on the receiving end, just like you have been of these misfortunes. We must unite to get revenge on Jason for what he's doing to both of us. And they really do focus on Jason as the one. Because Orante, throughout this entire set of trials, still wants to marry the princess Creusa. As we move along through the different acts, he still sees that as a goal that he can achieve. But Medea would like Jason back, but she's. The trust is broken. So they both want revenge on Jason.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes, but I also think that she sees that the way to save Jason and keep him for herself is to have Orontes marry Creusa. So they do join forces to figure out how each can get what they want. And Medea's really supporting Orontes in having Creusa marry him because that takes her out of the picture with Jason.

[Pat Wright]

Yes, she would very much like that. It's interesting how much stock she seems to put in this marriage to prevent further trouble, I think. Very interesting, but. But no spoilers. In opera, that does not happen. So let's hear a little bit of this exchange between Medea and Arante. When she works to convince him, for both their sakes, they must unite.

[Petria Fasso]

Now we have Medea and Jason. A very tearful scene. She's begging him to remember all their history together. And this cracks me up. He said, I must conceal myself from your tears if I am to save my honor. And she says, he fears the tears that he forces me to shed. Yeah, so it reminds me, it's men can't deal with well.

[Pat Wright]

And he's leaning on this crutch of honor because he says, but honor obliges me to serve this king, this king who took us in and let us live here and we did have some years of peace. Honor binds me to him. And you know, he's just saying whatever he needs to say to he thinks, convince her that she has to go. She must honor what the king has commanded of her and he must honor his obligation to the king. But it's been made very clear to us what's really going on with his relationship with the king's daughter. And he's trying to sweet talker any and every way he can, saying, sweetheart, once this is done, once I do my military, we'll be back together. It'll be fine. Medea's not really buying it.

[Petria Fasso]

No, he's not very convincing to me either.

[Pat Wright]

No, no. I mean, maybe it's because we know what's going to happen. But no, he's not very convincing. You can tell. And it. It depends on, you know, after all, in opera, these are singing actors. These are actors. And it depends on how it's. It's acted out, how some of the. The shading of meaning goes in these scenes. But you're right, Medea does want to convince him to turn away from all of this and join her. And that would. It would be fine. It hasn't gone too far.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes.

[Pat Wright]

But this is where we finally get this revelation in the opera of the backstory brief. But it's there. I left my country for you. I abandoned my father for you. I killed my brother for you. I was banished from my homeland all for you.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes.

[Pat Wright]

Yes, she does awful, awful things. But in this upcoming where they're trying to present her a little bit sympathetically at certain moments. Yes, not all the way through, but in certain moments. And Jason just. He snaps. He's had enough. He's just like, you need to go. That is what you must do. And he says, I have to save my honor. And that's the end of the story. And he walks off. Medea's left alone to. To ponder her situation.

[Petria Fasso]

It's so sad. She says, I succeeded in ridding myself of all my natural traits. So she knows how far she sank to do everything for love, for Jason.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah. This is a beautiful piece. We're going to hear some of Medea telling us this is the price of love. This is the fruit of my sin. This is where my loving and my doing unnatural things for the sake of this man. This is where it has left me.

[C]

The Holy Father.

[Pat Wright]

Kap.

[C]

Sa.

[Pat Wright]

You're listening to opera for everyone. And this is a baroque opera by the French composer Marc Antoine Charpentier at the story of Medea in Corinth. This is after her lover Jason, her almost husband has done everything he's done with the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece. And there they are in Corinth. And she is bereft because she's being exiled by the king of Corinth. Jason doesn't love her anymore and she's very sad in that song we just listened to. But this powerful sorceress does not merely find herself sad. She's ready for some revenge.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes. So she's talking with Nerine, the nurse, and Nerine's friend Arcus says he knows the secret and he's warned me of his perfidy. His marriage with the princess by the king has been approved and your banishment is but a Subterfuge to guarantee his days in safety against you. So this is the final straw. This is the final proof. Medea has known it all along, but now she says vengeance alone can be my concern. Yeah, let us cause to fall upon him, Jason, the evils he prepares for me. And may murder separate us just as murder has united us.

[Pat Wright]

Right, because it was the murders she committed in his support of him that put them together. And she's planning a murder that will be a vengeance on Jason. And again, no spoilers. In opera, it's not the murder of Jason himself.

[Petria Fasso]

No, no spoilers. So back in the first scene, I don't think we said this before when Jason was saying, well, we rely on the princess, she'll protect our children, et cetera, et cetera. And by the way, she really has her eye on that beautiful golden robe that is yours that you got from your great grandfather, the sun God. So how about if we just give it to her?

[Pat Wright]

And Medea says, yeah, sure, fine, she can have it, I don't care. This is not the most important thing in my world right now. So she's given her this very precious.

[Petria Fasso]

Garment, or she hasn't quite given it to her yet. So now she's agreed, now that she's really furious and she's starting to plot her revenge. She is going to poison the dress before she gives it to Creusea.

[Pat Wright]

Yes. And a poison that only acts on her command.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes. So she won't use the poison unless she actually has to. So in other words, if for some reason she's able to have Creusa marry Orontes and she gets to keep Jason, then the dress will still be benign and beautiful and Creusa will have it just in case. The next scene is full of demons and sorcery and another opportunity for dance and music and sets and costumes.

[Pat Wright]

Another divertismo.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes, yes.

[Pat Wright]

To end our third act, we have so many demons because the the effort required and the steps required to brew these herbs and infuse this dress with this waiting in weight poison, it's going to take a lot of power and it's going to take all these demons helping her. And this is going to be more dance and more music and Medea is going to call on the powers of hell black treachery. And you really get the sense of her as a powerful sorceress getting to work. She is no longer pleading, she is no longer truly hoping for a solution. Though she would accept if the princess married the other guy or auntie. But she's not expecting It. She is getting ready for what she has to do to make Jason suffer the most, which is killing his beloved. But there will be more and even worse, but we'll save that for a few minutes.

[Petria Fasso]

Hence, it's terrifying. I mean, I've been feeling a lot of sympathy for Medea, but this is. It's very terrifying. What happens next?

[Pat Wright]

Yes, and just a brief comment that this is an opera that premiered in 1693, truly during a period of time in Europe, a couple of centuries worth of concern about witchcraft, true concern about witchcraft. Women, primarily single women, older women, widows, never married women, childless women, were often accused of witchcraft. I mean, these supernatural forces that someone they could blame for crop failure or illness. And it was a very real thing. In the late 15th century, there was a book that was created, a manual to help people identify witches. And apparently this book in Europe is. Is part of what kicks off a concern for witches, and that a lot of women were exiled and killed as a result of these concerns, that they. They could tap into the powers of hell in order to wreak vengeance. And neighbors and. And people would point to them like, that's the source of my problem. That's what these. These women. And so to me, it's fascinating that this is a. A story about a sorceress written in a time when there's still a certain amount of true concern about witchcraft in the air. And just for reference, it's this very same time, 1692, 1693, that the Salem witchcraft Trials took place in the United States. Well, in what was to become the United States. So this is essentially the same period of time that this opera is premiering in Paris as the Salem Witchcraft Trials. The hysteria over witchcraft occurred in Massachusetts.

[Petria Fasso]

Wow, that's fascinating.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah, it's kind of a connection to consider. I mean, nothing more to be said other than just to note it at this point.

[Petria Fasso]

Let's listen to some of this final divertissement. It's some of the dancing and the dramatic music and the darkness of it. It's very fascinating.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah. And Medea turns into a totally different creature here. She infuses the dress. She gets what she wants from the demons. And her final words to them are, I've gotten what I needed from you. Be gone. And that's a big, long finish to act three.

[Petria Fasso]

And it's here that her costume changes too, right? She changes into a totally different person.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah. And it's up to the production how they're going to depict that. In the one that we referenced that they did in Paris in 20, 24. She actually, she just takes off her black suit she's wearing, and she's wearing just a slip dress or a slip. And her hair, which was previously perfectly quaffed, is a little wild and her makeup gets a little scarier looking, but there's a transformation that's, that's visual and also in the way she displays her character through song and.

[Petria Fasso]

And the music too, is much more forebod.

[C]

Sa it.

[Pat Wright]

We are ready to start Act 4 of our five act opera. Medea has prepared the dress, it has been given to Creuse. And the first thing we hear is Creuse's confidant, her nurse, her friend, speaking to Jason about how beautiful she looks in the dress.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes, she looks so beautiful in the dress. Only we know that the dress has delayed poison in it. So you have. In the second scene, Jason and Creuse are talking about their love.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah. They're not only talking about their love. It is unbridled passion in this scene between the two of them. They feel they're on the precipice of getting everything they want. They didn't see that divertissement at the end of Act 3.

[Petria Fasso]

No.

[Pat Wright]

A little foreshadowing here. There's all of this talk of fire and burning. What new fire is in my heart? Jason says. And he also says, my heart has been set alight. Well, yeah, yes, there is going to be some fire, but not the passionate kind.

[Petria Fasso]

Oh, dear.

[Pat Wright]

Well, let's hear a little bit of Jason and Cayuse as they let loose their passionate feelings for one another.

[C]

Sa.

[Petria Fasso]

Shir shidu sabakra.

[C]

Shidu Samaritan.

[Petria Fasso]

Mor.

[C]

Sa.

[Petria Fasso]

So after this exchange of poetic language about fiery passion, Creusa says, now I have to go because Oronte is coming. So then you have the two male rivals and there's some sort of underlying threats.

[Pat Wright]

Well, and just the very fact that she leaves when he is approaching is confirmatory for Ariante.

[Petria Fasso]

So Jason, then he says, well, you know what my responsibilities are. The war causes me the troops that today the king is assembling are now awaiting only me. And he leaves. So then you have Medea and Arante and Nerine talking, and Orante says, your suspicions were right. I saw myself. The inexcusable treachery that must be the price of your boundless love. I read into the heart of Jason. He is taking away the princess from me. He loves her over so much perfidy. Oh, heaven grant us victory.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah. He is totally now convinced of what Medea said. He wasn't Convinced of it before, but he's seen enough in the actions of both Creusa and Jason have no more doubt.

[Petria Fasso]

So, you know, Medea's assuring him that she has a plan, but he is saying, will the pleasure of your vengeance restore the princess to me?

[Pat Wright]

That's what he wants.

[Petria Fasso]

That's what he wants. And if she has to go to DEFCON with poisonous dress, he's not going to get what he wants.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah, yeah. And she knows that. She will confirm for him what he needs to hear at this moment, but she's not really on his side. She just wants him not to be in the way.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes, but then in the next scene, she talks to the king, Creon, and she says, the princess must marry the prince of Argos. So she's still trying.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah. And even before that, she has said essentially to herself, to Neyrin, which is like her talking to herself. She's thinking through all of what she has to do. Can I remember that I am a wife and a mother? And she says, nope, I cannot have pity. I cannot be soft. The vengeance is all. I must strike Jason where he is the most sensitive. So we're getting the first little clue that she intends not only harm to the woman he loves, to Cayusa, but also to the children, which I don't know about you, but it sends chills down my spine.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes, and it's not really an opera spoiler, because everybody knows the story of Metea, but to see how it unfolds in this opera is really fascinating. I mean, if you don't really know the story here she's being. She's thinking about it. She's trying all other kinds of things to. To not have to do that. But in the end, we will see.

[Pat Wright]

Yes. Yes. So then she does have an interaction with Creon, the king, Creusa's father.

[Petria Fasso]

And it's pretty interesting, actually, because here he's banished her. She really has no power in his mind, anyway. And she says, I want you to have Orontes marry Creusa today. And he says, what? You're telling me that I'm the king? Who do you think you are?

[Pat Wright]

Right. And she does it on the basis of honor. Honor requires that you observe this bond and see this marriage through, this marriage of Creusa and Orante. But he won't hear of it. I mean, we know what is in the back of his mind. He's like, I'm not doing that anyway. But he just tells her, you. You're. You're someone who's been Banished. You have no right to talk to me that way.

[Petria Fasso]

And then she says, cease, Creon. Cease blinding yourself about your power. You have a mistaken idea if you believe yourself to be able to impose your will on me. When you pride yourself on being king, remember that I am Medea.

[Pat Wright]

Guess.

[Petria Fasso]

And it's just. It's unbelievable.

[Pat Wright]

Well, he doesn't put up with it. He tells his guards to seize her.

[Petria Fasso]

And she puts a spell on them.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah.

[Petria Fasso]

And they seize him. He's lost everything.

[Pat Wright]

Right. She is not a powerless woman. She's not someone to be pushed around.

[Petria Fasso]

No, but this is the first time we really see it, right?

[Pat Wright]

Other than the whole incantation.

[Petria Fasso]

Oh, well, yeah, but we don't know the effects. This is the first time we've actually seen her act.

[Pat Wright]

The results of her work.

[Petria Fasso]

The results of her work, yes.

[Pat Wright]

Right, right. Well, we get more phantoms showing up.

[Petria Fasso]

Terrifying stuff. I mean, the king is rendered completely weak and he can't believe what's happening to him. So she takes pity on him and says, I pity your sad fate. Your subjects are betraying you, but fear nothing of their excesses to stop it all. I need but a moment. And she waves her wand, and immediately, instead of the phantoms, there are beautiful women. And so all of the soldiers and the king himself are all seduced by these beautiful women. So it's a power. She has control over all of them, but it's not. It's horrifying in that they have no control over themselves. But it's not like dark and fighting. It's a different kind of terror, I think.

[Pat Wright]

That's right. Well, she's not only able to make the guards bend to her will, she is also slowly, with these phantoms and her magic, causing Creon to go mad.

[Petria Fasso]

Mad, yes, Absolutely mad.

[Pat Wright]

And this is our divertissement, our final one of the opera. It's at the end of this fourth act, and I'd like to play a little bit of this piece where there are two of the phantoms singing and then the chorus as well. And I remember when I first heard this piece of music, I truly thought it could be called enchanting.

[Petria Fasso]

And that's what they are. They're enchanters. There have been other people in myths that were enchanting like that and led people to great danger. Thinking of the Sirens, for instance, from Odysseus and you know the beautiful song, seducing people, having them crash on rocks.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah. Well, she's seducing him into madness.

[C]

Sa.

[Pat Wright]

After this enchanting scene and all of the demons have gone away. Creon is left alone on the stage and we're going to hear him struggling against what's coming over him. He knows things are going badly. He can feel the darkness of her spells working on him. He will say, the skies are filled with fire. There's that image again. And I know she wants revenge on me as well. All this terrible brightness. Medea is causing this. The dark waters of the Styx are coming after me. It's all hideous blackness. And that's the end of Act 4 in this five act opera of. You're listening to Opera for Everyone. And we are about to begin Act 5 of this five act opera from the very end of the 17th century by French composer Marc Antoine Charpentier. Medea. While Medea is showing herself to be a sorceress and people are beginning to suffer as a result of it.

[Petria Fasso]

It's truly terrible what she's doing. So now at the beginning of this act, the father or the king has been going mad in the last act, as we said. And the princess is appealing to Medea. And Medea says to her, you can fix everything if you marry the Prince of Argos today.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah.

[Petria Fasso]

And she says, well, what can I do? I've been depending on my father and the king. And Medea says to her, seek no longer. Save in me the power of the king. The power of a father and a king. So she's been telling everyone and they haven't been hearing her.

[Pat Wright]

Right. It's a little bit of the same exchange that she had with Creon earlier.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes.

[Pat Wright]

You think you're the king and in charge. No, no, you've got that wrong. And she says the same thing to the princess who, who knows that Medea is powerful, which is why she's begging for Medea's help to save the king.

[Petria Fasso]

And she even says, take back Jason. Give me back my father. May Jason go away. Let him flee with you. And so we have a moment where we think, well, this might have a happy ending after all.

[Pat Wright]

But we know better, right?

[Petria Fasso]

We do.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah. It's really fascinating that Medea says, princess, you can solve this all with the wave of your hand. All you have to do is marry Orante. Your father will be well, Jason will leave with me because he can't marry you anymore. And all those things he was hoping for, you can make it all right, Princess. But she has a powerful argument against it, because it would be her defying her father to marry Orante. Because Orante is not the man that her father has told her she must marry. And she can't do that. She cannot defy her father.

[Petria Fasso]

But that's what she said earlier. And then Medea says, no, look for the power of a father and a king in me. And later Creusa says, ah, take back Jason and give me back my father. Go away and let him flee with you. So she seems like she's willing to go along with it, but not with.

[Pat Wright]

The marriage, with saving her father. Well, and this is where we're seeing once more that the primary love in her life is her father. She wants her father saved and she's willing to give up Jason, right, for the sake of her father. But she doesn't say that she'll marry Orante, and that's not good enough.

[Petria Fasso]

And now the next scene is Cleon coming and saying the gravest misfortune. Your father has killed the prince of Argos and then turned his sword on himself. So there's no more option, right, For.

[Pat Wright]

Medea's plan that is closed off to them. Little by little, she's working her vengeance towards the people she feels have wronged her most. Orante arguably wronged her not at all. Orante was willing to support all of her schemes and plans. He's collateral damage, yes, but it was part of the king's madness. And we know, once we hear of his death, that this other solution of the princess marrying him, that's closed off. And she is crushed that her father is now gone. There's no curing him. And there's this wonderful exchange between Creusa and Medea after she learns of all of this. Creusa calls her a barbarian creature. There's a bit of hitting close to the bone here with that comment, because Medea's from Asia Minor, which the proper Greeks thought of as outside of civilization, therefore barbarian. So she says, you're a barbarian creature. You embrace and use the powers of hell. And Medea is not going to take anything from her. She's not going to accept any of it. And she says, yeah, just go ahead and get Jason to console you. See how that goes. This is a wicked exchange between these two women.

[Petria Fasso]

A cat fight.

[Pat Wright]

SA after this exchange between Medea and Cayusa, Medea touches her, embraces her in some way, activates, whether we know it or not, she activates the dress, the garment, and she walks off stage. And we see Cayusa left alone as her dress starts smoldering, bursts into flames, depending on how it's going to be depicted. But it's horrifying as she is in this garment and can't remove it.

[Petria Fasso]

Some of that fire imagery coming back. What flame is lit in my veins? What poison whose ardor suddenly consumes me is hidden within this robe. Help me. I can bear it no longer. I burn on my body. A brazier is attached, makes me suffer a thousand torments at the same time. Nothing can soothe the excess of my pains. And then Jason comes in and she says, come to me. Do not abandon me. My father is dead. I'm dying. I perish by the design that Medea has formed. A thousand poisons concealed within her robe. But at least I have what is needed to thank the gods. Her pitiless fury leaves me the privilege to die before your eyes. So that's the last thing. She's dying. She's burning to death. But she considers it a favor from the gods to be able to die in front of Jason with him there.

[Pat Wright]

And that's exactly what Medea wanted. But I'll tell you what, this is a slow death. I mean, we know death scenes in operas can go on to give him a chance to sing about it, but that's like a stab wound. Maybe, but here she's in a dress that is burning her a lot. It is so horrifying.

[Petria Fasso]

It is horrifying.

[Pat Wright]

And it goes on. You think, how long can this last? And it does continue. She and Jason get to interact quite a bit with each other. And he is. Help. He's right there. But he's helpless to do anything to aid her.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes.

[Pat Wright]

And just true to form. I mean, I'm not a big Jason fan. From this character in this opera, Jason's like, oh, this is really bad for me. Can anything add to my pain? All right, My emphasis, not his. But he does say those words in this opera, that he sees Medea's intention and he does not see this as something done to this princess. He sees this as something being done to him, which was Medea's intention. But still, this woman is being burned alive in her dress.

[Petria Fasso]

More collateral damage. But she didn't really. She wasn't any kind of an engineer of any of this plot. She was manipulated by her father. Yes, she did fall in love with Jason. But.

[Pat Wright]

But yes, if her father had said no, she would have obeyed her father. That's true. Well, she does finally succumb to the.

[Petria Fasso]

Dress, and then Jason is left alone on the stage, and he has a fantasy that he will be able to have vengeance on Medea. But Medea arrives in the sky on a dragon.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah, this, by the way, in the opera when it would have been performed during the Baroque period. This was another chance for the stage machinery which wowed the audience to present itself. Imagine Medea showing up on a dragon. Don't picture yourself as somebody who watches movies these days. Imagine in 1693 what a spectacle it would have been. So she shows up and things are not going to work out the way Jason wants.

[Petria Fasso]

No. And he calls her a barbarian too, which I think is very interesting.

[Pat Wright]

Yeah.

[Petria Fasso]

And she says, faithless wretch, after all your treachery, could I bear to see in my sons, the sons of Jason. So.

[Pat Wright]

Well, that's her response to the fact that their lifeless bodies are shown to Jason. So this is more torment that she inflicts on Jason. Yeah. By killing other people. Yes, by killing her own children. But she has steeled herself for that job. She has decided she can't feel pity for these innocent children, her own children. I mean, talk about unnatural. She can't feel pity for them and weaken because her desire for vengeance is so overwhelming, it's so important. She must make Jason suffer. And it's not by killing him, it's by killing everyone around him.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes. And then she says, farewell, Jason, I have fulfilled my vengeance. And she says, seeing Corinth in flames, its palaces burned down, weep forever over the ills that your passion has caused.

[Pat Wright]

Uh huh.

[Petria Fasso]

And that's the end of the opera.

[Pat Wright]

Yes. So fascinating that our main characters do not die.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes. Unlike so many other operas, it's a.

[Pat Wright]

Different kind of powerful, tragic, death filled ending. But the main characters don't die, and that's part of the power.

[Petria Fasso]

That's an interesting point. And both go on to live in Greek mythology. The opera didn't have Corneille, didn't have an option really, to have them both die because that would be so different from the Greek mythology. But it is very interesting.

[Pat Wright]

I think he made the most of them not dying. It's profound drama here. This is just a wonderful piece of art, I believe.

[Petria Fasso]

Yes. I'm so glad I got to share it with you.

[Pat Wright]

Oh, Petria, I'm so grateful for you joining me again to do another opera. What a treat this has been. Thank you so much.

[Petria Fasso]

Thank you. It's been a real treat for me too.

[C]

Sa.

[Pat Wright]

Thanks for listening to this episode of Opera for Everyone. Opera for Everyone airs every Sunday morning from 9 to 11am Mountain Time on 89.1 Khol in Jackson, Wyoming. If you've missed any of today's show, you can find this episode and many others on the Opera for Everyone podcast. And while you're there, please subscribe, rate and comment. By doing this, you'll be helping others to find us. I know opera can be unfamiliar and challenging, but everyone loves a good story, and a story set to music is even better. That's why the mission of this show is to make opera enjoyable for everyone. Opera for everyone.

[C]

Sa.