back	la serpenta canta reviews
	THE STAGE October 11, 2001 Royal Festival Hall DIAMANDA GALAS - LA SERPENTA CANTA (THE SERPENT SINGS) Alone on stage with just a grand piano and strikingly sharp lighting designs, Diamanda Galas cut a formidable figure. This multi- lingual diva of operatic despair and glistening, brief redemptions was in London for one night to deliver messages from the beautiful losers of international poetry and song - manifestos of torment and epiphany. Drawn instinctively to marginalised and exiled figures, her 80 minute greatest hits collection (‘hits’ as in Al Capone, she has explained) showcased arrangements of poems by Henri Michaux, Paul Celan, Gerard de Nerval and Cesar Vallejo alongside Greek and Armenian folk song, a blistering version of II PUT A SPELL ON YOU, and her own compositions. This fiercely intelligent choice is her democratic demonstration of radical and revolutionary traditions in both culture and society. Keeping audience interaction to a minimum, breathing deeply and drinking copiously between numbers, she appeared to be operating in some kind of delirious transport of ecstatic identification with her material. No one else hits the high notes quite like her. It is a multi-octave display that organises screams, wails, chants and even cats and dogs into a seamless flow of politically- underpinned torch song visions. Occasional echo and delay on the amplification only serve to heighten the impression that she is perhaps an ancient prophetess of imminent and ceaseless collapse. And the show’s title suggests Galas’ almost biblical intentions. She is singing for us the dark wisdom of being human with all its pain and occasional joys. GARETH EVANS

back

la serpenta canta reviews

THE STAGE October 11, 2001
Royal Festival Hall
DIAMANDA GALAS - LA SERPENTA CANTA
(THE SERPENT SINGS)

Alone on stage with just a grand piano and strikingly sharp lighting designs, Diamanda Galas cut a formidable figure. This multi- lingual diva of operatic despair and glistening, brief redemptions was in London for one night to deliver messages from the beautiful losers of international poetry and song - manifestos of torment and epiphany.

Drawn instinctively to marginalised and exiled figures, her 80 minute greatest hits collection (‘hits’ as in Al Capone, she has explained) showcased arrangements of poems by Henri Michaux, Paul Celan, Gerard de Nerval and Cesar Vallejo alongside Greek and Armenian folk song, a blistering version of II PUT A SPELL ON YOU, and her own compositions.

This fiercely intelligent choice is her democratic demonstration of radical and revolutionary traditions in both culture and society. Keeping audience interaction to a minimum, breathing deeply and drinking copiously between numbers, she appeared to be operating in some kind of delirious transport of ecstatic identification with her material.

No one else hits the high notes quite like her. It is a multi-octave display that organises screams, wails, chants and even cats and dogs into a seamless flow of politically- underpinned torch song visions.

Occasional echo and delay on the amplification only serve to heighten the impression that she is perhaps an ancient prophetess of imminent and ceaseless collapse. And the show’s title suggests Galas’ almost biblical intentions. She is singing for us the dark wisdom of being human with all its pain and occasional joys.

GARETH EVANS