Medea and Stumbling on Stones: Part I

Are we killing our children?

Medea is a story of a sorceress from Ancient Greece who is scorned by her lover, isolated by her loved ones, abandoned in a foreign country, and in seething resentment and cold-blooded revenge, she murders her own children. Yet, behind her filicidal rage lies one of the most complex and fascinating characters ever conceived. Médée Premiered in 1797 at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris, during a period of social upheaval in a population reeling from the French Revolution, when theatre became a refuge for counter-revolutionary activity, paralleled in Medea's story of betrayal and revenge.

By contrast, theatres today are often places of indoctrination, rather than of refuge, where freedom, justice, solace, beauty and inspiration could flourish. However, this Canadian Opera Company’s 2024 production of Luigi Cherubini’s score of Medea in a role resurrected from the canon by opera’s legendary Diva Maria Callas, under director Sir David McVicar, is a rarely performed, visually vivid masterpiece. …