Cherubini - Médée, in concert at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées (TCE), Paris

Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, Wednesday February 11 2025

Conductor: Julien Chauvin. Médée: Marina Rebeka. Jason: Julien Behr. Dircé: Mélissa Petit. Créon: Patrick Bolleire. Néris: Marie-Andrée Bouchard-Lesieur. Suivantes : Hélène Carpentier, Margaux Poguet. Coryphée: Pierre Gennai. Le Concert de la Loge. Les Chantres du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles.

Photos: TCE Instagram acount, not credited.

The last time I saw Cherubini’s Médée, it was in its 1797, opéra-comique format with spoken dialogues in alexandrines, fully-staged at the Salle Favart a year ago. According to Alexandre Dratwicki, artistic director of the Palazzetto Bru Zane, the version performed at this week’s concert at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées reconstructs ‘the Médée Cherubini dreamed of,’ i.e. what Cherubini might have presented at the Opéra (had he not fallen out with the management). This has a bigger orchestra, a ballet, and sung recitatives composed, in the manner of Cherubini (or Gluck), by Alan Curtis. I wasn’t so sure I needed to hear Médée so soon again in concert, but was certain I wanted to hear Marina Rebeka again after her Elisabeth de Valois at the Bastille, also last year, so I bought tickets and went.

The concert started a quarter of an hour late. The orchestra sat patiently on stage while a gentleman who had collapsed in his seat in the stalls was carried out. This didn’t seem to affect the music-making: conductor Julien Chauvin, leaping about on the podium like Berlioz in a caricature, got his period-instrument orchestra, Le Concert de la Loge (named after the Chevalier de Saint-George’s ensemble, for whom Haydn’s Paris symphonies were commissioned), off to a zippy start.

Dircé’s two suivantes, Hélène Carpentier and Margaux Poguet, were unexpectedly good and notably well-matched, vocally both of tjem warm and juicy, yet still offering a nice contrast between themselves and with Dircé (I’d have supposed Margaux Poguet was a mezzo, but apparently not.)

Bass Patrick Bolleire (Créon) had a strong first act, singing with depth, regal dignity and nicely-nuanced paternal authority. The Coryphée, Pierre Gennai, did what he had to do; sadly for him, that isn’t much. But as he’s only in his mid-twenties, he has plenty of time to pick up more interesting roles.

In 2019, when I saw her as Aricie, I’d found Mélissa Petit’s voice was ‘small and sweet and impeccable,’ and so it still is. Her light, silvery youthfulness, with a rapid vibrato, perhaps suits the role of Dircé better than it actually does the music Cherubini gives it: there’s still something of the talented student about her. But I’m quibbling: ‘Hymen ! Viens dissiper une vaine frayeur’ was applauded enthusiastically, so quite early on, it started to look like we were in for an unusually good evening.

Julien Behr sang Jason in last year’s Opéra Comique production, mentioned above. No longer burdened by that staging’s demands - it made him a vile character - he was able to sing the role more sympathetically, with unassumingly heroic dignity. He comes across as more earnest than charismatic, but has, as I noted last year, the right dramatic temperament and vocal weight for this part, singing firmly and expressively. Unfortunately for him, the evening’s two leading ladies were to put him somewhat in the shade.

At last, in stalked Médée. Marina Rebeka made a stunning entrance, evidently already in character, head down and frowning grimly like an angry bull, wearing cascades of devilish crimson - fire-and-brimstone coloured - and clusters of jewels giving off showers of sparks. The house was suddenly galvanised. She looked as if she might devour Jason on the spot, and gave a blistering performance, singing as if she were a knife-thrower hurling gleaming (and lethal) silver blades at a bullseye, with crisp declamation and astonishing accuracy. At the end of the first act, it was clear we were heading for a major triumph: it was going to be one of those rare evenings that ends in an absolute explosion of cheers that go on forever. I anticipated a very late dinner.

However… When, as part of my job, I facilitated big corporate events, I was never keen on using new technologies on stage, for reasons obvious to anyone who’s tried fiddling with them in front of a roomful of impatient executives. In recent years, seeing singers, even conductors, carrying in tablets instead of printed scores, I’ve wondered at their willingness to countenance the risk of a glitch: running out of charge, software seizing up, accidentally touching the screen in the wrong place… 

At the start of the second act, with everyone settled in and the conductor's arms raised, Marina Rebeka, now in glittering black and still visibly in murderous character, instead of singing on cue, sang nothing. She dabbed at her screen nervously in the silence, several times. Eventually she rolled her eyes, broke character, laughed sardonically, and threw up her arms in exasperation, more than once. The audience chuckled. One person booed loudly. Néris slipped into the wings to fetch printed scores (I later read that her tablet had also conked out at the same time). By the time she was back, the conductor himself had stepped down and somehow solved whatever the problem was.

But obviously, Marina Rebeka was flustered. The spell was broken. At least, so it felt to me. She rallied after Jason was back, and certainly put in quite a performance, but it felt more forced than before, as if she was putting on her rage and grief rather than actually living them; her top notes were a little less gimlet-accurate, her declamation and French pronunciation slightly less impressive, and she had trouble sustaining her lower range, sinking nearly into inaudibility. There was no absolute explosion at the end and nobody rose to their feet, though there was certainly loud applause while the bouquets were handed out. Tablet problems - at least - robbed her of a triumph.

I add that ‘at least’ because by this time, presumably, everyone backstage would have known that there had been a death in the house: the unfortunate gentleman carried out sick was in fact, as I found out later, already a corpse. Perhaps that played a part in unsettling some - Patrick Bolleire sounded woollier to me after the interval, for example. Also, regarding Marina Rebeka’s bottom notes: it occurred to me that the period band was perhaps playing at a lower pitch than she’s used to. Whatever, this is all conjecture.

And as Néris, Marie-Andrée Bouchard-Lesieur, who’d already impressed me in the same role last year (‘New to me, she combines a fluid, golden mezzo voice with equally radiant stage presence’) seemed unaffected. On the contrary, she put in a great performance, more remarkable still than last year's. Apparently she’s progressed fast. She’s now definitely reached the ‘magnifique’ stage, offering us a picture of vocal health, with a rich, powerful, sumptuous grainy mezzo voice, not too dark, consistent in timbre and strength from top to bottom. A true match for Rebeka’s Médée. This was a consecration: the triumph of this weird evening was, in the end, hers.

Just a final word or two about the chorus and orchestra. Les Chantres du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles are a youngish choir with a bright sound suited to this score, though the tenors sometimes verged on chaotic. And despite Julien Chauvin’s energetic gesticulations, by and large the orchestra seemed to me either tepid, or just plain noisy. There was some nice, fluttery playing from the strings that seemed to look forward to Mendelssohn, but for a period band, they lacked bite, and the woodwinds sounded breathy, when you could hear them at all. No triumph for them: there was even some booing, though not from the majority, I’m glad to say.