DVT Divergence Vocal Theater

A note from Misha...
I’d like to tell you a little about the strange and serendipitous circumstances whose conspiracy led to the creation of this opera. About a year ago, John Harvey, poet and playwright, asked me to portray Klytemnestra in his new translation of Aeschylus' Agamemnon - and I thought, "Oh, God - I have to memorize lines" - it's funny, but in response to that, my second thought was, "Well, if I have to deal with memorizing lines, then I want to create an opera companion piece" (somehow this seemed easier than slaving over spoken text - which is some ways, for me, it is). And so, John asked me to write from Klytemnestra's point of view... and my writing became the sung words for this opera. Actress Miranda Herbert, joins me in portraying another facet of Klytemnestra in the opera - her spoken lines are John's words - so tonight, I sing the words I wrote, and all the spoken words belong to John. Meg Brooker, a brilliant dancer, is the third aspect of the character. The work is set for viola, piano, soprano, actress, and dancer. I think of the piece as an original work in its totality: the way a choreographer might think of their work. My theatrical vision for the piece is not separate nor superimposed over the music - it's part of it. I've worked with Meg and Miranda several times before, and that's another key to my aspiration of making work with a strong theatrical identity - Meg and Miranda very much understand my aesthetic - it's like having two more versions of me with different skill sets, but each feeds a common vision - and that's a very, very big deal to me, artistically.

I asked Dominick DiOrio to set my words to music - and with Mozartian brilliance my words wriggled from inky scribbles on a page into the soaring vocal embodiment of, arguably, the most influential and subversive Greek Heroine in all of the plays: Klytemnestra. She stands against the polis, against the emerging male-ordered, linear, dualistic state; against the forming patriarchy that will define our culture (for women and men) for thousands of years after her time. She possesses the inherent potential of subversive expressivity in body, voice and word, and thus the power to entirely restructure the male paradigm of society. Her murder of Agamemnon is a symbolic rejection of Order and an embrace of Chaos - it is Joy Unleashed, Metamorphosis Complete - a release from the confining limitation of societal acquiescence to power-over.

And now, the Tapestries are laid: follow their never-ending purple into The House of the Family of Atreus:

Klytemnestra, daughter of Leda and Zeus
Fabled Swan
Mother to Iphegenia, the sun walking in a yellow dress
Sister to Helen of Troy
Wife of Agamemnon
Who sacrificed their daughter to war
My sweet, young girl
My only flower
Her throat a smile
Lips silent and set open
Where were you when he dropped her on stone like an animal and slit her open?
Where were you when time fell to banish him to dark roadways?
Walls bulge here and there
Gaps smile up at you from the floor
The house shudders, drops to its knees,
breaks apart
Its an old house
Your daughter's not coming back
Blood in The House of Atreus
Again, tell it again

(deconstructed from John Harvey’s beautiful translation of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon)