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	The Wire (November 1999) Revue by Biba Kopf On Location : DIAMANDA GALAS Belgium: Ghent Gravensteen Death trails Diamanda Galas with the tightlipped determination of a grizzled bounty hunter, growing increasingly vengeful the longer he is denied his prize. Of course he is after all of us in the end, but with miscreants like Galas, her life’s breath is an affront to his professionalism, and taking her scalp is a matter of the utmost urgency. As an undercover operator, he resents those most who persistently blow the whistle on his deeds, be they death-resistant witnesses like poet Paul Celan, hellbound blues singers like Robert Johnson, or latterday elegiacs like the French composer Eliane Radigue and Galas. A medieval castle glowering over old town Ghent, Gravensteen is an appropriately grim location for their latest showdown. A small hall holding 270 witnesses has been prepared for the confrontation. The minimal stage props underscore the stark setting: some candelabras flank the foregrounded microphone stand; to the right, there’s a grand piano. The performance (one of ten) is the result of a commission from the Ghent arts organization Vooruit for a piece commemorating the 500^th anniversary of the birth of the city’s most famous son, Charles V, emperor-to-be of the Spanish-Flemish empire. Feeling uneasy about celebrating an active supporter of the Spanish inquisition who drove the Moors and Jews out of Spain, Vooruit invited Galas, secure in the knowledge that she would take a more ambivalent line. Sure enough, Defixiones, Will and Testament uncovers a hidden 20^th century equivalent to Charles V’s religious-led atrocities: the Turkish massacres of Armenians and Greeks in 1915 and 1922. Making the connection with her Greek-American heritage once again places her encounter with Death on a personal footing. This is exactly what gets Death’s goat most about Galas. Rather than shrinking from his presence, she insists on intimacy. The better she knows Death, the easier she outflanks him. Further, at some point 15 years ago when she was composing her AIDS trilogy Masque of the Red Death, she managed to circle round behind him, and she’s been on his trail ever since. In Gravensteen, she rounds on him with the cold fury she has distilled from the bitter, sorrowful texts by writers such as the Armenian poet Siamanto, executed by the Turks in 1915, the Syrian exile Adonis, the Belgian writer Henri Michaux and a few of her own - at the core of *Defixiones*. The dimming of the lights silences the audience, and an electronically processed choral compound, sounding like the synthesis of a Gregorian chant and a Stygian boatman song, slowly swells into the void. It abruptly falls silent when Galas enters. Dressed in black, her face painted death’s mask white, except for her blacked up eyes and lips, she opens with an unaccompanied, wordless lament of desolating beauty, her pitch slightly wavering under the weight of emotion the music carries. It develops into a harrowing Totentanz in an Armenian killing-field called, appropriately enough, "The Dance" after the Siamanto poem it is based on. Excerpts from other works are drawn into its long, slow passage, which is periodically interspersed with a taped recitation. Spoken in an unfamiliar language, it echoes those anonymous voices bearing witness to horror in news reports from war zones the world over. Other than the tape, only the occasional synthesized gust of wind and the odd echo effect lend support to Galas’ performance, which alternates a cappella parts and passages accompanied by urgently stabbed piano chords and sudden skittering rows. The dignity of death’s slow procession is preserved in the clarity of Galas’ vocal parts. In contrast with the extraordinary double-miked and multi-voiced techniques she has deployed on past works, here she cleaves close to single, more purely operatic lines. The one moment when her voice cracks and releases a long, hissing moan, the impact is desolating. "The Dance" is followed by a series of shorter pieces designed to keep Death reeling, including "Birds of Death", a vocal riff possibly based on Ornette Coleman’s "Lonely Woman", an extraordinary Greek Zembekiko, called "If I Die On The Boat", complete with melodramatic silent movie piano backing, some blues, and a reprise of the Galas-arranged "Let My People Go". Things get a little touch and go when the dimming lights, decaying piano chords and her slowly ululating voice all converge on the point of extinction, and the pitifully low candle power causes the outlines of her face to melt. In a chilling piece of theater, she has been transformed into an ectoplasmic presence. But just as Death swoops in to claim his victory, Galas denies him yet again with the death-defying rattle of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s "See That My Grave is Kept Clean" for an encore.

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defixiones reviews

The Wire (November 1999)

Revue by Biba Kopf

On Location :

DIAMANDA GALAS

Belgium: Ghent Gravensteen

Death trails Diamanda Galas with the tightlipped determination of a grizzled bounty hunter, growing increasingly vengeful the longer he is denied his prize. Of course he is after all of us in the end, but with miscreants like Galas, her life’s breath is an affront to his professionalism, and taking her scalp is a matter of the utmost urgency. As an undercover operator, he resents those most who persistently blow the whistle on his deeds, be they death-resistant witnesses like poet Paul Celan, hellbound blues singers like Robert Johnson, or latterday elegiacs like the French composer Eliane Radigue and Galas.

A medieval castle glowering over old town Ghent, Gravensteen is an appropriately grim location for their latest showdown. A small hall holding 270 witnesses has been prepared for the confrontation. The minimal stage props underscore the stark setting: some candelabras flank the foregrounded microphone stand; to the right, there’s a grand piano. The performance (one of ten) is the result of a commission from the Ghent arts organization Vooruit for a piece commemorating the 500^th anniversary of the birth of the city’s most famous son, Charles V, emperor-to-be of the Spanish-Flemish empire. Feeling uneasy about celebrating an active supporter of the Spanish inquisition who drove the Moors and Jews out of Spain, Vooruit invited Galas, secure in the knowledge that she would take a more ambivalent line. Sure enough, Defixiones, Will and Testament uncovers a hidden 20^th century equivalent to Charles V’s religious-led atrocities: the Turkish massacres of Armenians and Greeks in 1915 and 1922. Making the connection with her Greek-American heritage once again places her encounter with Death on a personal footing.

This is exactly what gets Death’s goat most about Galas. Rather than shrinking from his presence, she insists on intimacy. The better she knows Death, the easier she outflanks him. Further, at some point 15 years ago when she was composing her AIDS trilogy Masque of the Red Death, she managed to circle round behind him, and she’s been on his trail ever since. In Gravensteen, she rounds on him with the cold fury she has distilled from the bitter, sorrowful texts by writers such as the Armenian poet Siamanto, executed by the Turks in 1915, the Syrian exile Adonis, the Belgian writer Henri Michaux and a few of her own - at the core of Defixiones.

The dimming of the lights silences the audience, and an electronically processed choral

compound, sounding like the synthesis of a Gregorian chant and a Stygian boatman song, slowly swells into the void. It abruptly falls silent when Galas enters. Dressed in black, her face painted death’s mask white, except for her blacked up eyes and lips, she opens with an unaccompanied, wordless lament of desolating beauty, her pitch slightly wavering under the weight of emotion the music carries. It develops into a harrowing Totentanz in an Armenian killing-field called, appropriately enough, "The Dance" after the Siamanto poem it is based on. Excerpts from other works are drawn into its long, slow passage, which is periodically interspersed with a taped recitation. Spoken in an unfamiliar language, it echoes those anonymous voices bearing witness to horror in news reports from war zones the world over. Other than the tape, only the occasional synthesized gust of wind and the odd echo effect lend support to Galas’ performance, which alternates a cappella parts and passages accompanied by urgently stabbed piano chords and sudden skittering rows. The dignity of death’s slow procession is preserved in the clarity of Galas’ vocal parts. In contrast with the extraordinary double-miked and multi-voiced techniques she has deployed on past works, here she cleaves close to single, more purely operatic lines. The one moment when her voice cracks and releases a long, hissing moan, the impact is desolating.

"The Dance" is followed by a series of shorter pieces designed to keep Death reeling, including "Birds of Death", a vocal riff possibly based on Ornette Coleman’s "Lonely Woman", an extraordinary Greek Zembekiko, called "If I Die On The Boat", complete with melodramatic silent movie piano backing, some blues, and a reprise of the Galas-arranged "Let My People Go".

Things get a little touch and go when the dimming lights, decaying piano chords and her slowly ululating voice all converge on the point of extinction, and the pitifully low candle power causes the outlines of her face to melt. In a chilling piece of theater, she has been transformed into an ectoplasmic presence. But just as Death swoops in to claim his victory, Galas denies him yet again with the death-defying rattle of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s "See That My Grave is Kept Clean" for an encore.