Menotti: The Medium / Rapchak, Castle, Bedi, Chicago Opera

$19.99
Label
Cedille
Release Date
January 1, 1997
Format
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    Featuring ⌄
    • COMPOSER
      MENOTTI, GIAN CARLO
    • PERFORMER
      Castle, Michaels, Rapchak, Chicago Opera Theater
    Product Details ⌄
    Works ⌄

    1. Act I: Introduction

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    2. Act I: "Where, oh, where" (Monica)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    3. Act I: "Be careful, Baba's coming!" (Monica)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    4. Act I: "Where have you been all night?" (Monica)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    5. Act I: "Get ready! Hurry!" (Baba)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    6. Act I: "Good evening, Madame Flora" (Mrs. Gobineau)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    7. Act I: "Is this the first time" (Mrs. Gobineau)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    8. Act I: "It Happened long ago" (Mrs. Gobineau)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    9. Act I: "It's time to begin" (Baba)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    10. Act I: "You must be very silent" (Mr. Gobineau)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    11. Act I: "Mother, mother, are you there?" (Monica)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    12. Act I: "Doodly, doodly, are you happy?" (Mrs. Nolan)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    13. Act I: "Mummy, Mummy dear" (Monica)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    14. Act I: "Mother, mother, are you there?" (Monica)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    15. Act I: "Send my son to me..." (Mr. Gobineau)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    16. Act I: "What is it? Who is it?" (Baba)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    17. Act I: "But why be afraid?" (Mr. Gobineau)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    18. Act I: "Baba, what has happened?" (Monica)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    19. Act I: "Where is Toby?" (Baba)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    20. Act I: "The Sun has fallen" (Monica)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    21. Act I: "The spools unravel" (Monica)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    22. Act I: "Oh God! What is happening to me?" (Baba)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    23. Act II: Introduction

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    24. Act II: "Bravo!" (Monica)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    25. Act II: "What is the matter Toby?" (Monica)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    26. Act II: Baba's entrance

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    27. Act II: "Toby, you know that I love you" (Baba)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    28. Act II: "But first you must tell me" (Baba)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    29. Act II: "Perhaps it was not you after all" (Baba)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    30. Act II: "Good evening, Madame Flora" (Mrs. Gobineau; Mrs. Nolan)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    31. Act II: "Not to know my daughter's own voice?" (Mrs. Nolan)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    32. Act II: "Please let us have our seance, Madame Flora" (The Gobineaus; Mrs. Nolan)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    33. Act II: "And you, you too get out" (Baba)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    34. Act II: Toby's exit

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    35. Act II: "Mother, mother, are you there?" (Girl's Voice)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    36. Act II: "Afraid, am I afraid?" (Baba)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    37. Act II: "The dead never come back" (Baba)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    38. Act II: "O God, forgive my sins" (Baba)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    39. Act II: "Who's there?" (Babay)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti

    40. Act II: "I've killed the ghost!" (Baba)

      Composer: Gian Carlo Menotti


"A first-rate recording of a durable classic." (Opera News)

"Chicago Opera Theater brings the story fully and frighteningly to life for the first time on compact disc. Joyce Castle sings the title role . . . with chilling malevolence. Bedi brings to the role [of Monica] a pervasive and affecting sweetness." (Newark Star-Ledger)

"Exudes a riveting theatrical atmosphere." (Dallas Morning News)

Oft-performed but mysteriously absent on recordings, Menotti's eerie opera The Medium has materialized in its first recording in more than a quarter century. This two-act "musical drama" is about a fake psychic whose surprise encounter with the unknown leads to murder and mayhem. It is stage a dozen times annually in the US alone. Yet, recordings haven't been available for years, and (until now) it has never appeared on CD.

A "sensational success" for Menotti (Kobbé's Opera Book), the present version of The Medium had its premiere February 18, 1947 at New York's Heckscher Theater. New York Times music critic Olin Downes wrote, "we have here the quality of opera. It is dramatic music, emphatic in action as well as feeling, and in essence song, which is what opera must be. No other American composer has shown the inborn talent that Mr. Menotti, an Italian by descent, unquestionable possesses for the lyric theater." Critic (and composer) Virgil Thomson called it a "first-class musico-theatrical work . . . the most gripping operatic narrative [he] has witnessed in many a year . . .[It] wrings every heart string, and the music is thoroughly touching."