Project Description

Medea and Jason

Direction musicale, Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas / Mise en scène et Scénographie, Pierre Lebon / Création lumière, Bertrand Killy / Costumes, Floriane Breau / Conseiller musical, Benoît Dratwicki / Direction de projet, Juliette Guignard / Administration générale, Laure Caillaud / Production et logistique, Eléonore Minot

Lucile Richardot, Médée / Flannan Obé, Jason / Ingrid Perruche, Créuse / Matthieu Lécroart, Créon / Eugénie Lefebvre, Cléone, Nérine / Pierre Lebon, Arcas / Xavier Gocel et Gabriel-Ange Brusson, danseurs

Anaëlle Blanc-Verdin et Gabriel Ferryviolins / Matthieu Bertaud, flutes / Xavier Miquel, oboe / Lucile Tessier, bassoon / Juliette Guignard, viola da gamba / Marie-Amélie Clément, doublebass / Etienne Galletier, theorbo and guitar / Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas, harpsichord and direction

Betrand Killy, general director / Floriane Jan, set director

Throughout her tragic destiny filled with betrayals, poisons, magic and murders, Médée can also make us laugh !

That is our bet here, and the bet of many opera parodies. Those were very common in the baroque times ; that is actually thanks to them that success of a piece could be measured. Famous operas were turned into parodies, and performed all across the country, especially at the Theatre des Italiens or at the Foire Saint Laurent in Paris. Several parodies of Médée and Jason were created this way, mocking the tragedy of Corneille, the opera of Marc Antoine Charpentier or of François Joseph Salomon, less popular.

This spectacle is an invitation to the meetings between tragedy and comedy, theatre and dance, light comedy and serious arias, demons arias and sailors songs… In this way, the opera parody of the 17th and 18th centuries foreshadows what will later become the operetta or even the musicals.

The musical work necessary for this creation will be a great challenge since the aim is to recreate a musical painting that can support such a story. The score will cross funny and comical vaudevilles (popular melodies), passages of melodrama, as well as dramatic arias and dances by M-A Charpentier (extracts from the opera Médée), J-B Lully (extracts from the operas Atys, Armide), J-P Rameau (extracts from the operas Hippolyte and Aricie, Les Indes Galantes).

Coproduction Opéra de Limoges
Centre de musique baroque de Versailles – Festival Sinfonia en Périgord
Opéra National de Bordeaux
Office artistique de la Nouvelle-Aquitaine – IDDAC
Ferme de Villefavard – Centre Culturel de l’Entente cordiale – Château d’Hardelot
Ensemble Les Surprises

Download the entire description here (PDF)