Singer's searing work looks at war, oppression
By Bob Gendron | Special to the Tribune
October 29, 2007
American music is rife with performers who sing about death. Much rarer is the artist who attempts to speak for the dead. Bringing voices to the deceased and oppressed has long been the specialty of singer-pianist Diamanda Galas. In a recording career that has spanned 25 years and multiple languages, she has tackled taboo topics such as AIDS, dementia and clinical depression before they became mainstream concerns.
The San Diego native also proved ahead of the curve on the subject of the World War I-era killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks. The topic is currently making headlines as Congress has been considering a resolution labeling the killings "genocide." Such a resolution could have a negative effect on Turkey's cooperation with the U.S. in the Iraq war. In an age in which coverups, human torture and war plague dozens of nations, the issue has never been more relevant. Galas knows this.
So, too, do the vocalist's fans, who rarely get an opportunity to see her live. Not surprisingly, after-market tickets to Galas' Thursday and Saturday shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art -- her first local appearances in more than a decade -- commanded upward of $100. The diversity of the audience mirrored that of Galas' repertoire. Before the doors opened, leather-clad bikers and makeup-caked goths mingled with professional types in the venue's bright-white lobby.
Onstage Thursday, performing her "Songs of Exile" program, Galas embodied the opposite feel. Seated at a grand piano and outfitted in a sleeveless black dress, she channeled voices of the murdered, widowed and tormented via a dramatic solo performance whose harrowing intensity evoked that of an exorcism. Stark lighting enhanced the gloom.
Drawing on the prose of exiled poets and interpreting an array of international compositions, Galas employed a startling multioctave range. Trilled notes and elongated syllables stood as expressions of soul-stealing trauma and resentful anger. Her vocal outbursts often fell outside the boundaries of conventional singing, instead taking on the form of spasms and wails. Staring only at a songbook during the 80-minute concert, Galas seemed in a trance, inhabiting the scorned personas of the narratives.
She hissed the seething "Anoixe" and shivered through Middle Eastern lamentations. Changing intonation at will, she employed a husky, guttural timbre that sounded like that of a mourning East European grandmother. A billowing delivery gave the impression of a madwoman speaking in tongues. Melodic episodes ("Epistola a Los Transeuntes") and poignant ballads ("Heaven Have Mercy") juxtaposed darker classical fare. But any relief was illusory.
Fittingly, Galas drained the humor from a set-closing rendition of Johnny Cash's "25 Minutes to Go." Inserting a female into the male role, she mocked spiritual deliverance and resigned herself to the gallows, bringing a haunting end to a song cycle where no man or god provided comfort.