The dramatic episodes in which Greek mythology character Medea plays a role have ensured that she remains vividly represented in popular culture. Titles are ordered chronologically.
Literature
In Cicero's court case Pro Caelio (56 BC), the name Medea is mentioned several times, as a way to make fun of Clodia, sister of Publius Clodius Pulcher, the man who exiled Cicero.[1][2]
Medea (Ovid's lost tragedy - two lines are extant)[3]
In La Tavola Ritonda (c. 15th century), Medea lives on as the marvelously beautiful mistress of the island Perfida's Cruel Castle (Castello Crudele) in which she imprisons the hero Tristano (Tristan), as "every year she wanted to bent a [different] knight to her pleasure" for she was "the most lecherous woman in the world". Tristano, faithful to his true love Isolda, manages to escape from Medea's magic castle.[4]
In Rick Riordan's The Lost Hero (2010), Medea, having been resurrected by vengeful goddess Gaea (Mother Earth), runs a department store in Chicago. She appears again in The Burning Maze and is shown to work under Caligula.
David Vann, Bright Air Black (2017) retells Medea's story in prose poetry from a third person perspective.
Madeline Miller, Circe (2018) narrates Medea's visit to her aunt Circe to be cleansed for the killing of her brother.
Ben Morgan, Medea in Corinth (2018) is a sequence of poems and dramatic interludes which focus on Medea's religious encounter with Hecate. It includes a sonnet sequence composed of letters to Creusa, her love rival, illuminating their relationship.[7]
In 2024, Dark Horse Comics released the English version of Medea, a Belgian graphic novel retelling written by Blandine Le Callet and illustrated by Nancy Peña.[4]
Theatre
Olivia Sutherland in MacMillan Films staging (2016)
Peter Kien's Medea: An der Bose (en: On the Border), a play written while Kien was interned at the Theresienstadt Ghetto and never performed, having been hidden in Auschwitz until after his death in 1944.[9]
Jean Anouilh's Médée (1946), which centers around Medea, Jason, Creon, and Medea's nurse, and was premiered at Théâtre de l'Atelier in Paris on March 25, 1953.[10]
Dea Loher's Manhattan Medea, which premiered in 1999 in Graz, is set in modern-day Manhattan; Medea and Jason are living as illegal immigrants, until Jason marries the daughter of a rich businessman, abandoning Medea and their child; the play takes place on their wedding night.[16]
Luigi Cherubini, Médée (1797); it is Cherubini's best-known work, but better known by its Italian version, Medea. A lost aria, which Cherubini apparently smudged out in spite more than 200 years ago, was revealed by x-ray scans.
Simon Mayr, Medea in Corinto (1813), composed to a libretto of Giuseppe Felice Romani, and premiered in Naples.
Ray E. Luke's Medea won the 1979 Rockefeller Foundation/New England Conservatory Competition for Best New American Opera.[18]
Mikis Theodorakis, Medea (1991), premiered at the Teatro Arriaga. This was the first in Theodorakis' trilogy of lyrical tragedies, the others being Electra and Antigone.
Chamber Made, Medea (1993), composed by Gordon Kerry, with text by Justin Macdonnell, after Seneca.
Oscar Strasnoy, Midea (2) (2000), based on Irina Possamai's libretto, premiered at Teatro Caio Melisso, Spoleto, Italy. It won the 2000 Orpheus Opera Award.[19]
Antonio Caldara, Medea in Corinto (1711), cantata for alto, 2 violins and basso continuo, 1711)
Jacob Druckman's orchestral work, Prism (1980), is based on three different renderings of the Medea myth by Charpentier, Cavalli, and Cherubini. Each movement incorporates material and quotations from the music of Druckman's three predecessors. At the time of his death, Druckman was writing a large-scale grand opera on the Medea myth commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera.
Jason and the Argonauts (movie, 1963), starring Nancy Kovack as Medea. Medea is a temple dancer who Jason saves after her ship sinks, causing her to help him.
A Dream of Passion (movie, 1978), starring Melina Mercouri as Maya, an actress who is portraying Medea and seeks out Brenda Collins (Ellen Burstyn), a mother who recently murdered her children.
In the 2002 biopic of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera's previous wife Lupe Marín (played by Valeria Golino) and Frida Kahlo (played by Salma Hayek) talk of Lupe's response to Diego's infidelity. In response, Frida points a knife in a non-threatening gesture at Lupe, and calls her "Medea".
Médée Miracle (movie, 2007), dir. Tonino De Bernardi, starring Isabelle Huppert as Medea; a modern version of the myth set in Paris. The character of Medea lives in Paris with Jason, who leaves her.
Medeya (2009)[20], dir. Natalia Kuznetsova, a pioneer of a genre styled by the director as "Rhythmodrama".
Olympus (TV series, 2015), featuring Sonita Henry as Medea.
The 2015 television series Doctor Foster was inspired by the myth of Medea.
Between June and August 2016, the Cuban Broadcasting Radio Progreso presented the 60 chapters series The Mark of Medea written by Orelvis Linares and directed by Alfredo Fuentes. In the series, two women, played by the actresses Arlety Roquefuentes and Rita Bedias, commit crimes inspired by the myth of Medea. This first of them castrates her lover in revenge by his treason. The second one drowns her own four-year-old daughter in a pond because the baby disturbed her plans of living with her lover.
In the 2004 visual novel as well as the anime adaptations of Fate/stay night, Medea appears as a relatively major character under the title of Caster. She can also be summoned as Servant Caster in the mobile game Fate/Grand Order in two variants: as an adult who experienced Jason's betrayal already and as a young teen in the time of her just meeting Jason called "Medea Lily". In the stories of Fuyuki, Older Medea has become an antagonist, while in the Okeanos storyline, where her younger self lies with Jason in the ship, Argo, she is both the protagonist and the antagonist.
The Persona of Chidori Yoshino in Persona 3 (2006) and its subsequent rereleases (FES, Portable and Reload) is portrayed with the skull of a ram and curly yellow hair, most likely representing her involvement in the story of the golden fleece.
Medea has her own location in the game Hades II, where she talks to and helps the protagonist, Melinoë, giving her upgrades to her skills.
References
^"Cicero: Pro Caelio". attalus.org. Retrieved 2024-07-20.
^ a b"Clodius - in ancient sources @ attalus.org". attalus.org. Retrieved 2024-07-20.
^Fragments are printed and discussed by Theodor Heinze, Der XII. Heroidenbrief: Medea an Jason Mit einer Beilage: Die Fragmente der Tragödie Medea P. Ovidius Naso. (in series Mnemosyne, Supplements, 170. 1997.
^ a bLe Callet, Blandine (May 21, 2024). "Medea". Dark Horse Comics.
