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	This review was kindly submitted by Lambert. "Singing the unspeakable, it's mourning with power that's almost shocking" Diamanda Galas Defixiones, Will and Testament Reviewed by John Shand Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, January 15th The marketed image is a sinister version of Morticia from The Addams Family. If I was Diamanda Galas - which I can say with unrivalled certainly I am not - I would sack her marketing gurus, the truth being infinitely more compelling than the image. The first of Galas's two performances was titled Defixiones, Will and Testament. Defixiones is a Greek word referring to warnings on graves that would-be despoilers will come to a nasty end. Galas is a Greek American, and the song cycle she presented was dedicated to the victims of the Armenian and Anatolian Greek genocides in 1915 and 1922, as well as being a plea on behalf of writers dispossed by brutal regimes the world over. The subject matter is hardly basis for light entertainment, and what was presented was occasionally so powerful as to be almost shocking. She occupied the gloomy stage alone, like one imprisoned there, stalking between the piano and another microphone at which she sang unaccompanied, or with electronic backdrop. Few have written about Galas without referring to her multi-octave range, as though this were a measure of her art. Such considerations are insignificant in the totality of a voice capable of extraordinary effects in her crusade to express the unspeakable; to find a musical language with which to deal with horrors and desolate sadness. Away from wars her music could be a soundtrack to mourning the death of a parent one never resolved one's differences with. The singing was as primal as it was schooled, having much in common with Albert Ayler's raw tenor saxophone as with Maria Callas's anguished cries, spanning the chasm of meaning lost to languages other than English. Beneath this she played the piano magisterrially, at one point achieving the effect of crystal being smashed with the utmost tenderness."

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defixiones reviews

This review was kindly submitted by Lambert.

"Singing the unspeakable, it's mourning with power that's almost shocking"
Diamanda Galas
Defixiones, Will and Testament
Reviewed by John Shand

Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, January 15th

The marketed image is a sinister version of Morticia from The Addams Family.
If I was Diamanda Galas - which I can say with unrivalled certainly I am
not - I would sack her marketing gurus, the truth being infinitely more
compelling than the image.

The first of Galas's two performances was titled Defixiones, Will and
Testament. Defixiones is a Greek word referring to warnings on graves that
would-be despoilers will come to a nasty end. Galas is a Greek American, and
the song cycle she presented was dedicated to the victims of the Armenian
and Anatolian Greek genocides in 1915 and 1922, as well as being a plea on
behalf of writers dispossed by brutal regimes the world over. The subject
matter is hardly basis for light entertainment, and what was presented was
occasionally so powerful as to be almost shocking. She occupied the gloomy
stage alone, like one imprisoned there, stalking between the piano and
another microphone at which she sang unaccompanied, or with electronic
backdrop. Few have written about Galas without referring to her multi-octave
range, as though this were a measure of her art. Such considerations are
insignificant in the totality of a voice capable of extraordinary effects in
her crusade to express the unspeakable; to find a musical language with
which to deal with horrors and desolate sadness. Away from wars her music
could be a soundtrack to mourning the death of a parent one never resolved
one's differences with. The singing was as primal as it was schooled, having
much in common with Albert Ayler's raw tenor saxophone as with Maria
Callas's anguished cries, spanning the chasm of meaning lost to languages
other than English. Beneath this she played the piano magisterrially, at one
point achieving the effect of crystal being smashed with the utmost
tenderness."