Bell, Chime, Ciyes, Talking Drum, Vibratone in C, Vibratone in E Response The production received mixed reviews. Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times: "When Audra McDonald sings her first notes as the Medea-like heroine of Marie Christine, Michael John LaChiusa's solemn, sometimes somnolent musical tragedy at Lincoln Center, there is clearly sorcery at work.... Marie Christine ... is a resounding confirmation of Ms. McDonald's status as a vocal artist of singular skills and sensibility.... As a musical portrait of an individual, Marie Christine is stunning; as a compelling, complete production, it still feels oddly unfinished. Despite ravishing orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick, the score rarely achieves much momentum or intensity on its own, and its recurrent motifs don't haunt the imagination as they should." Michael Feingold, reviewing for the Village Voice, wrote: "Proficient, skilled, and imaginative, LaChiusa marshals an enormous panoply of approaches to tell his tale, but it doesn't hold together, even with the towering talent of Audra McDonald at its center, because the myth won't supply what he needs from it; his constantly shifting strategies only diffuse it further. Though LaChiusa's blurry conception is often conveyed in equally blurry lyrics, his music, with its constant restless invention, probably deserves a fairer hearing than it gets here. More than any new score I've heard recently, it wants unplugging." Awards and nominations Original Broadway production References External links Internet Broadway Database listing "Michael John LaChiusa Makes the Story Sing", November 30, 1999 Marie Christine plot and production information at guidetomusicaltheatre.com Marie Christine production notes, composer's notes, review summaries, song list at rnh.com 1999 musicals Broadway musicals Musicals based on plays Works based on Medea (Euripides play) Modern adaptations of works by Euripides