Word: medea
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Philadelphia last week, Mezzo-Soprano Blanche Thebom declaimed the bitter story of Medea to the subdued accompaniment of the Philadelphia Orchestra. It was the world premiere of a 20-minute musical monologue by Atonalist Ernst Krenek, based on Poet Robinson Jeffers' version of the old Greek masterpiece-and one more sample of the broad and busy range of roles that falls to the Metropolitan's Soprano Thebom (pronounced Thee-bom) these days...
...matter-of-fact tone of a chronicler, she sped through the early lines, told how she, Medea, had lavished her love on her husband Jason, only to have him leave her for another woman. Gradually, with ever-widening vocal leaps and roller-coaster plunges, she worked up to her thoughts of revenge and-with a piccolo shrilling-to the murder of her own and Jason's children. The piece ended in a gloomy postlude. When it was over, the orchestra gave Thebom a concerted "Bravo!", and the audience, once it recovered its composure, called her back five times...