Véronique Gens, Cyrille Dubois, Judith van Wanroij et al; Le Concert Spirituel/Hervé Niquet
Alpha ALPHA1020 170:43 mins (3 discs)
Some regard Médée (1693) not just as Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s best work, but as one of the finest operas of the Baroque. It was the 50-year-old composer’s only commission ever for a serious French opera, and he gave it his all: for the principals, sizzling recitative-arioso that entangles instrumental with vocal parts; for the choir, intricate ensembles alternating with grand numbers; for the dancers, dizzying generic variety, from sassy loure to old-fashioned chaconne; for the band, an active role in plot exposition. There are no happy endings here as the sorceress Médée, maddened by her lover Jason’s betrayal, poisons her rival, Princess Créuse, drives Créuse’s father to suicidal madness and kills the children she has borne Jason.
Véronique Gens fits Médée to her vocal arts: when wounded, her pitches drip with sorrow; when threatening, her crescendos gather like storm clouds; when enraged, she lays waste to all other parts. But this super-sized characterisation lacks soft, straight-toned expression with which she might express vulnerability, such as is brilliantly conveyed by tenor Cyrille Dubois (Jason) and soprano Judith Van Wanroij (Créuse), the chemistry of whose tender joint singing illuminates their dramatis personae.
The boldness of Le Concert Spirituel surpasses the earlier benchmark recording by Les Arts Florissants (2009). For the climactic ‘Noires filles du Styx’, director Hervé Niquet extracts chilling menace from the weird modulations that mark the arrival of Médée-summoned devils; conversely, the group’s galant dance movements convey a joy wholly new to the Médée discography. Niquet also brilliantly deploys continuo – its pulses, pauses and rushing passages – to shape how we hear the words of the recitative, which is what drives Médée forward. A magnificent performance.
