Medea (Reimann)
Medea is a German-language opera by Aribert Reimann after the play by Franz Grillparzer. It was premiered at the Vienna State Opera in February 2010. The German premiere was at the Oper Frankfurt in August 2010. History. Aribert Reimann had already written seven literary operas, including "Melusine", "Lear" and "Troades", when he received a commission from the Vienna State Opera to write an opera for the conclusion of the era of Ioan Holender as General Director of the opera house. He chose the play "Medea" by Franz Grillparzer as a basis for the work, the last part  of Grillparzer's trilogy "" ("The Golden Fleece") which is focused on Greek mythology and based on the "Argonautica" by Apollonius of Rhodes and "Medea" by Euripides. The opera was successfully premiered at the Vienna State Opera in February 2010, staged by Marco Arturo Marelli, conducted by Michael Boder, with Marlis Petersen in the title role. The German premiere was at the Oper Frankfurt in August 2010. Music. Grillparzer showed Medea as a foreigner without protection who becomes the victim of powerful men, a view of the tragedy appealing to Reimann. In a performance at the Komische Oper Berlin, staged by  Benedict Andrews with Nicole Chevalier in the title role, Medea is shown as a barbarian woman, a stranger to the society and therefore expelled. A reviewer of the premiere notes that the vocal lines are highly ornamented, full of melisma, and with sharply jagged contours ("wild gezackt, scharf geschnitten"), demanding virtuosity from the singers. The metre changes without rest, also in the orchestra. The strings are divided multiple times, while the winds often have solo function. The vocal style was described as highly artificial ("hochartifiziell").