Work: Médée/Medea

To rebuild Maria Callas’s 1961 Medea is to invite the cruellest comparisons in opera. For most of a single night at Epidaurus, Greek National Opera withstands it, but then comes the final act...

A new Medea at the Teatro di San Carlo presents three distinct visions – neoclassical in the pit, expressionistic on stage and conceptual in the direction – that never fully merge.

The challenges of Cherubini’s version of the Greek tragedy prove too much for the National Theatre to overcome.