Hellenic Festival 2007: Luigi Cherubini: Medea Cappella Coloniensis – Conductor: Lukas Karytinos Ancient Theater of Epidaurus, Athens 14.7. 2007 (BM)

 

A major part of this summer’s Hellenic Festival was a tribute to Maria Callas, a fitting occasion to bring Cherubini’s Medea back to the ancient theater of Epidaurus, the scene of one of the great diva’s most famed performances. Yannis Kokkos, the Greek scenographer based in France and much revered by many of his theater-going compatriots back home, took on a triple bill of sets, costumes and directing. Alas, the result showed that the division of powers is not just a theory for stuffy statesmen – on occasion, it can be of benefit to the odd stage production as well.

Exquisite 18^th-century costumes alluding to the era when the opera was composed, and the stage, complete with an upper tier above the orchestra and a staircase leading towards the sky, where the “heroine” gives her first and last appearance – picking up on legendary director Minotis’ idea of introducing a deus ex machina finale and having Callas’ Medea escape this world by ultimately passing into a metaphysical sphere – produced a stylized vision of timeless splendor in black, white and red, eerily enhanced by a twilight breeze sweeping across the stage. All of this looks mesmerizing on photographs, but sadly the lack of inspired directing made the evening frankly boring to sit through, a series of largely static frames, albeit beautiful, interspersed with very little else – mainly Medea’s children being solemnly led across the stage every so often.

The audience stirred only once, when a heckler booed conductor Lukas Karytinos – quite unjustly, since it was hardly his fault that the excellent Cappella Coloniensis, playing on period instruments, was unable to produce a sound full enough to do justice to this great open-air theater from their somewhat makeshift pit behind the stage. Luckily, the opposite was true of the fabulous ERT (Greek Radio and Television) Chorus, rehearsed to precision under Dimitris Bouzianis, and the various soloists – Jon Ketilsson as Jason, Enzo Capuano as Creon and Dimitris Kassioumis as Captain of the Guard – who all gave laudable individual performances, although Anna Maria dell’Oste seemed to be straining a bit for Glauce’s higher notes. I found myself wishing that her gifted colleague Irini Kyriakidou, cast as the First Handmaiden, had been given a shot at her part.

In the title role, Anna Caterina Antonacci kept herself going at full tilt throughout, and although her voice is perhaps not beautiful in the traditional sense, it has an exciting edge  and the mezzo’s vocal artistry combined with her extraordinary stage presence certainly make her deserving of her current fame. On this particular occasion, however, she was outstripped by Enkelejda Shkosa as Neris, who literally stole the show with her gorgeous, full contralto and walked away with a huge trophy of applause. This prompted a few self-deprecating remarks from spectators on the way out, as Shkosa hails from Albania, the home of the majority of foreign workers in Greece nowadays – thus lending a somewhat ironic twist to this myth about the fate of an outsider.

Bettina Mara
 

 

A German version of this review will appear in Orpheus Oper International in the Autumn.

Pictures © Helena Grigoriadou and Kostas Ordolis


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