Posted in Music by Asimina Chremos
October 29th, 2007
Diamanda Galas’s full-on, rage fueled incantations have been a source of comfort and inspiration to me over the last 15 years or so. When I heard that the MCA had put her in its Performance series, I was thrilled. Her Saturday 27 show, Guilty, Guilty, Guilty did not disappoint. I’m still haunted by the final strain of Heaven Have Mercy, an Edith Piaf number that Galas sang as her second, and final encore.
At the show’s start, the raven-haired diva took the stage with calm authority, acknowleging the audience’s appreciation with a polite bow. She took her place at the piano, and proceeded to belt out a series of gut-wrenching songs all the while accompanying herself with strength and incredible dexterity on the keyboard.
Galas’s great powers are Sybil-like. While I refer here to the 1970s book and moive Sybil about the woman with multiple personalities, I also take note that a "sibyl" is an oracle or prophetess. Specifically in Mercy, but also in her unconventional treatments of Bounjour Tristesse, The Thrill is Gone, and other songs (soon be released on CD by Mute UK), Galas flowed uncannily from one character to another within a single song. In these post-postmodern days of electronic irony, it may seem arcane to evoke the soul, fluttering madly about in the trap of the human condition, but that’s exactly what Galas brought, and it felt real and true. It’s an existential relief to hear our deepest struggles articulated with so much force and clarity.
In my role as dance editor, I was at the premiere of Zephyr Dance’s Left of Remote at the Dance Center on Thursday night, so I sent Chicago’s own vocal wizardess Carol Genetti, who we profiled in a past issue, to Galas’s program that evening, a much harsher program called Songs of Exile. Genetti’s report follows:
Before the concert started I overheard two men conversing about the appearance of the pre-show stage set up with the image of a projected-light gargoyle, which is apparently Galas’ logo. Apparently it was too much for them - a bit too melodramatic - and I thought, "You haven’t seen nothing yet!" When Diamanda finally appeared in her Greek goddess-slash-Morticia Adams look I thought, "Perhaps they already left." Unsurprisingly a few audience members did leave after the first barrage of teeth-clenching vocals.
Listening to her sing these words of exiled poets from around the world, one becomes aware of the cultural expectations of vocal artists, mainly that singers are supposed to sound "beautiful." I have to say with great joy that Diamanda overcomes this by sounding pretty much the opposite. Scathing and ugly, even when she was doing the most straight ahead interpretations—without any extended techniques—her voice had the quality of an alley cat on crack. She slashed parts of the songs into shattered fragments, instead of staying safely within the confines of familliar structures. She eats up each song and spits it back out, relying on the body’s emotional reaction to the song rather than the importance of words or aesthetic melodic interpretations.