Bloomberg.com
Singer Galás Talks About
Spiteful Love, Piaf's Range, Streisand
By Robert Hilferty
Feb. 12, 2007 (Bloomberg)
-- Avant-garde songstress Diamanda Galás is bringing her
four-octave range and arsenal of special vocal effects to New York's
Knitting Factory on Valentine's Day. Nothing says love like you
and your sweetheart listening to Galas's exotic versions of Shirley
Horn's ``You're My Thrill'' and Edith Piaf's ``Padam Padam.'' Galás,
who looks like a cross between Elvira and Morticia Adams, chatted
with me last week at an East Village cafe. The 51- year-old Greek-American
was attired in her standard all-black outfit, complemented by black
fingernails.
Hilferty:
Your show is called ``Valentine's Day Massacre.'' What's it about?
Galás: A person who vacillates between loving
and wanting to have the legs of her lover broken. When I do ``You're
My Thrill,'' it's like a black-widow spider looking at her mate
with absolute adoration, while knowing that she's going to kill
him.
Hilferty:
Is that why you call these ``tragic and homicidal love songs?''
Galás: Unfortunately, yes. I wish this were
just academic and not part and parcel of my personality, but I know
it to be true.
Hilferty:
You're part blues singer, part suicidal chanteuse, part vocal experimentalist,
part Janis Joplin, part Greek tragedienne. How did you arrive at
this style?
Galás: I've got this tradition of Anatolian
Greek singing in me, which is a Middle Eastern style. Then I have
the Spartan tradition, which is very rigorous and insists upon strength.
But I'm American too, and that can mean anything -- blues, country,
jazz. So you become an amalgamation of everything.
Hilferty:
What about this French chanteuse stuff?
Galás: My friend, a very famous drag queen
from Kentucky, started playing Edith Piaf to me. Soon I was doing
``Heaven Have Mercy.'' Then I ran across that wonderful biography
of Marlene Dietrich by her daughter, which is heinous and wonderful
and made me want to listen to her again. And recently I discovered
Juliette Greco, whom I find interesting. But not her recent Barbra
Streisand versions, which are terrifying.
Hilferty:
What grabs you about Piaf?
Galás: I saw a video of her the other night
and I was so struck. She had her eyes closed as if in a trance.
Her voice, though small, had a gigantic projective range. Her face
changes with every word.
Hilferty:
A bit like you. You occasionally incorporate those extended vocal
techniques you're notorious for -- ululations, growling, shrieks,
multiple tones and so on.
Galás: At a certain point, for example,
``You're My Thrill'' gets out of my control and what is happening
is chaos, which is how I feel about love.
Hilferty:
You'll be singing selections from your upcoming album, ``Guilty
Guilty Guilty.'' What else?
Galás: I might do a Henri Michaux song that's
really a hex. When you're obviously in the hatred phase of a relationship
you want the person to be immolated. Very slowly.
Hilferty:
So this Valentine's cabaret is not a cozy little evening of sentimental
pop. Is this really where lovebirds want to be?
Galás: It depends how elastic the relationships
are.
Hilferty:
You've been accused of being Satanic. Is it because you dress in
black and look like Morticia's twin?
Galás: I have no idea. I've been dressing
like this since I was 16. It predated those movements called Punk
and Goth. In my parents' villages, the Greek death singers all performed
in black. I think it has to do with simplicity.
Diamanda Galás
will perform Feb. 14 at 7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. at the Knitting
Factory, 74 Leonard St. in Manhattan. For tickets, call +1-212-219-3132
or see http://www.knittingfactory.com .
(Robert Hilferty is
a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer
of this story: Robert Hilferty at rhilferty@verizon.net .
Last Updated: February 12, 2007 00:08 EST