MEDEA - EXPLOITATION

MYTH AND HISTORY

CLAPPING AND GOSSIPS

Mechanics of the opéra-comique Medea by Luigi Cherubini, narrative techniques and forms of
presentation of musical theater.

Libretti are usually excerpts/fragments from extensive narratives that are taken for granted by

audiences as common knowledge. - What is told and what is left out? How does the music relate
to the text? How do forms of presentation in opera di er from those in drama.

We listen to the composition together and read the libretto / piano score, as starting material for
spatial designs in the peep-box stage.

Callas / Scala Milan 1957 :

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 Alternatively, the opera can be realized in concrete other locations. (Prerequisite is a meaningful
model of this place)

The focus is on the development of the venues: where does the story take place, locating, change
of settings, scenic suggestions through space, light, time, narration, atmosphere,....

Contemporary reception - how do we experience opera today? Can we make Cherubini's work
work for us? Where do we come in between, what would we rather do without, what do we want
to oppose the work with?

Is Cherubini's opera still suitable today as an examination of the Medea material?

What is the function of the CHORUS?

In addition to the spatial designs, you can work with students of speech Arts and rewrite
François-Benoît Ho man's libretto or Franz Lachner's German version with sung recitatives, Carlo
Zangarini French version. Version, and develop new scenes for Medea.

Whether the new texts are based on Cherubini's music and are sung or spoken and how you
incorporate them into the opera or whether you make the texts independent of Cherubini's work is
the experiment.

On the topic of text development and text overwriting, Viennese author Lydia Haider
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_Haider will o er a workshop in winter semester in which
speech arts students can also participate.

On the topic of CHORUS, Tine Groß will o er a new workshop for speech choir in December. The
goal here is to speak your texts as a choir in as large a group as possible. Speech arts students
can participate here as well.

The rst year of study is limited in the model to the spatial realization of one of the themes of the
opera. e.g.

Quarrel

Murder

Ceremony // Ritual

feast

choir / the people

Escape

Strangers

Blood sacri ce

The role of the sexes

Poison / Poisoning

Witches

The golden river , robbery

Murder

...or can choose and work out single acts

Please listen to the opera ( version above ) , read the libretto , Medea by Euripides and Medea
voices by Christa Wolf

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 Divided research :

Medea is a bottomless pit. Without claiming to be exhaustive, it is worthwhile to examine various

interpretations of the material and read them with a view to their respective periods of origin.

Choose interesting adaptations of the material and prepare short lectures.

e.g. Ovid, Euripides, Pierre Corneille, Grillparzer, Sénèque, Jean Anouilh, Christa Wolf, Heiner
Müller, Ingeborg Bachmann , Pasolini ( lm )

Lars von Trier ( lm ), https://archive.org/details/medea_202004 Jelinek etc.

Or you deal with a topic related to Medea :

E.g.

Archaic // Civilized societies

Vaudeville

The characters (part of the costume course)

Feminist perspectives

Betrayal

Hatred

Despair

The Argo

The Golden Fleece / Colonization of the Greeks

Escape

Foreign

Blood sacri ce

The role of the sexes

Poison / Poisoning

Witches

The politician

Murder

Christine K. ( child murderer ) here: Regression to the archaic?

etc.

The lectures (ca.15 -20 min ) will take place on 27./28.10

Have fun ! Nina

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