ABSTRACT
The modern revival of interest in Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Medee may be explained by various factors, among them the apparent isolation of the tragedie en musique within the French operatic repertory, its innovatory features and, its newly discovered appropriateness to contemporary concepts of the work of art. Denise Launay could write that ‘the features we value in Medee are precisely those in which this dramatic music differed from what was presented at the Academie Royale de Musique’. More significantly, Medee’s first demonstration of her magic powers is situated in the same central position in both operas - towards the end of Act III. There is an obvious affinity between Medee’s destruction of the palace, represented in both works with a comparable violence. The figure of the sorceress betrayed was to occupy centre-stage at the Academie Royale de Musique during the period when Thomas Corneille and Charpentier were collaborating on Medee.
