Medea cherubini maria callas biography
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Medea
Lead Donor of the GNO & Production donor
Production sponsor
As part of the tribute to the centennial of Maria Callas’ birth
The Greek National Opera is launching its tribute marking the centennial of Maria Callas’ birth with Luigi Cherubini’s Medea. This major international GNO co-production with three leading North American opera houses –the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, the Canadian Opera Company, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago– is to be presented on 25, 27, 30 April and 2, 4, 9 May 2023 inside the Stavros Niarchos Hall, conducted by Philippe Auguin, directed and with sets by David McVicar, and with Anna Pirozzi making her debut in the title role. This production is made possible by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) to enhance the GNO’s artistic outreach.
Overlooked for many decades, Italian composer Luigi Cherubini’s Medea –first presented in Paris in 1797, and at La Scala in Milan just over a century later, in 1909– was brought back into the limelight when Maria Callas first performed the title role in 1953 at the Florence May Festival. The revival was a huge success and, thanks to Callas’ extraordinary musical and acting abilities, the music world rediscovered a thrilling work tha
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Médée (Cherubini)
French opera
For other operas called Médée or Medea, see Medea (disambiguation).
Médée is a French languageopéra-comique by Luigi Cherubini. The libretto by François-Benoît Hoffman (Nicolas Étienne Framéry) was based on Euripides' tragedy of Medea and Pierre Corneille's play Médée.[1] It is set in the ancient city of Corinth.[2]
The opera was premiered on 13 March 1797 at the Théâtre Feydeau, Paris.[3] It met with a lukewarm reception and was not immediately revived. During the twentieth century, it was usually performed in Italian translation as Medea, with the spoken dialogue replaced by recitatives not authorized by the composer. More recently, some performances have used Cherubini's original version.
The long-lost final aria, which Cherubini appears to have elided from his original manuscript, was discovered by researchers from the University of Manchester and Stanford University by employing x-ray techniques to reveal the blackened out areas of Cherubini's manuscript.[4]
Performances and versions
[edit]Several versions of the opera were produced and staged in Italian and German:
- 1800: German translation by Karl Alexander Herklots was premiered in Berlin on 17 February 1800
- 1802: Ano