From Modern Stage to Ancient Roots: Cherubini’s Médée Between Dallas (1958) and Epidaurus (1961)

This article examines the reception of classical Greek art in Luigi Cherubini’s opera Médée, tracing its transnational journey from its composition in 1797 to the 1958 Dallas staging and the subsequent 1961 performances at Epidaurus. Using this production as a case study in layered reception, I demonstrate how ancient literature and aesthetics can help negotiate questions of national, artistic, and political identity. Originally premiered in France, the opera drew largely on Roman and eighteenth-century European adaptations of the Greek myth of Medea. This literary background was radically re-examined in 1958. By revising Médée and presenting it within a distinctively ancient Greek aesthetic for American audiences, director Alexis Minotis and his Greek colleagues highlighted the Euripidean elements of the story, thereby ‘restoring’ the opera to its classical and tragic roots. This staging asserted Greek artistic authority, claiming that Neo-Hellenic identity is essential to engaging ‘authentically’ with antiquity-inspired material. Supported by the Greek government, the production then travelled to Epidaurus in 1961. Situated in an ancient venue hosting a contemporary theatrical festival, the classical dimensions of Médée aligned with Greece’s ambitious development in the tourism industry and its ongoing European integration objectives. By analysing the interplay between literary sources, performance practice, aesthetics, and state sponsorship, I show how the ancient world and its reception can be reinterpreted and reappropriated to serve contemporary needs.