Ahead of this month’s Ancient Greek Meze performance (21 October at West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge), alongside Britten Sinfonia and stand-up classicist Natalie Haynes, mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston tells Cambridge Edition editor Louise Hoffman what it means to embody three powerful women of myth.
Can you briefly introduce us to the three women of Greek myth you’ll be portraying this month?
Daughter of the Cretan king Minos and his wife Pasiphaë, sister to Ariadne and half-sister to the Minotaur, Phaedra’s place in mythology is rooted to her marriage to the great King of Athens, Theseus, and the tale of her overwhelming lust for his son, Hippolytus. Upon Hippolytus’ inevitable rejection of her advances, she is humiliated and, aware of the irreversible consequences of her actions, kills herself.
Ariadne was put in charge of the labyrinth where the Minotaur was imprisoned. Regular sacrifices of children were made to the Minotaur, and one year Prince Theseus takes the place of one of these children, set on killing the Minotaur. Ariadne fell immediately in love with the prince, giving him the fateful ball of thread with which he could retrace his steps and escape the labyrinth unscathed. He succeeds and escapes, running away with Ariadne. But on their journey back to Athens, the fleet stopped on Naxos and Ariadne is left behind.
Very much from a different family line, Medea is granddaughter of the sun god Helios and niece of Circe. She is powerful, adept with magic and ends up using it time and time again to ensure her survival and to enact revenge. She uses her power to help Jason (and the Argonauts) to victory, falling in love with him and building a new life together away from her family, but he eventually betrays her – leading her to enact her revenge.
What is it about their stories that particularly resonates with you – both personally and from a performance perspective?
I find it liberating to live a little of the fire and passion of our heroines through this programme. Their situations are so extreme, and thankfully not ones I have experienced in my own life, but it’s amazing to step into their shoes guided by such brilliant music.
Do you have a favourite?
Musically, Phaedra. Britten conjures an amazing sound world: the vibrancy of the string orchestra with the otherworldly additions of solo cello and harpsichord, and the representation of her sometimes madness, sometimes strength, in the percussion parts.
In terms of wider story, Medea is the queen for me. She is an amazing mouthpiece for the injustice of being an outsider. At a time when women were given so little right to talk, she makes herself heard and impossible to be ignored.
Greek myth has of course been much in the spotlight in recent months. Was this concert in any way influenced by the release of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey?
It’s completely unplanned, but a nice coincidence! This programme has been an idea for many years; the anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s death this year and the opportunity to collaborate with Britten Sinfonia gave the impetus it needed to jump to life. It’s certainly apposite that many in the audience will have The Odyssey in their mind (and Odysseus does make a brief appearance in one of the orchestral pieces – Ulysses Awakes by John Woolrich). It’s exciting to think they might draw some of their own connections that we never even intended.
Does it feel good to be dedicating such a powerful programme – and yourself – to women of myth, given that their stories are so often sidelined, misunderstood or twisted?
The quick answer is, of course, yes! The wonderful thing is that these stories already show us fully fleshed-out characters: people full of as much contradiction and darkness as life and light. They may not make significant appearances in The Odyssey, but Ariadne, Medea and Phaedra are very much not sidelined; their stories are firmly rooted in mythological retelling. To think that Euripides wrote a play titled Medea in 431 BC and used the depiction of her grief to expose the inequalities of women in Athenian society at the time can’t be ignored! We don’t have to make an argument for these women to be in the limelight: they’ve made their own way there, and we get to be part of that re-telling.
Which pieces of music will you be performing in the voices of Medea, Phaedra and Ariadne?
Haydn originally wrote Arianna a Naxos for piano and voice (1789) and had intended to orchestrate it but died before he did. So, in our programme, we perform it in an arrangement for string orchestra, emulating that world he hoped Ariadne would eventually find herself in. Haydn portrays her nobility with such beauty that there is no way that we cannot feel sympathy for her. In the final aria, she girds herself for death in a flash of strength.
Quel prix de mon amour (What a reward for my love) comes from Charpentier’s 1693 opera Médée and is a wonderful anthem for the stories of all three women. Medea is so powerful and yet still her loyalty and love of Jason is her downfall: she has stopped monsters and yet ends up betrayed by the one who so deeply needed her powers.
The programme ends in the dark world of Phaedra by Benjamin Britten (1975). Here we fall into a world of the madness where lust and temptation are in control. The whole piece leads towards Phaedra’s fatal decision to kill herself.
Nothing can stop her: with poison coursing through her veins, her final dying words resound through Britten’s brash string texture: “My eyes at last give up their light, and see the day they’ve soiled resume its purity.” It’s the most extraordinary way to finish a piece, and one of my favourite death scenes to sing!
What do you hope audiences will take from this concert?
I really hope our audiences will lose themselves in the labyrinth of these stories. Myths let our minds run wild, and with music from so many different composers side by side, I hope these performances will be a whirlwind of imagination away from the everyday.
Ancient Greek Meze takes place at West Road Concert Hall on 21 October. Find out more and book your tickets at brittensinfonia.com.
Lead image: © MATTHEW JOHNSON