Goals of The Oresteia Project

Composer Andrew Simpson (faculty, Catholic University in Washington, DC) and librettist Sarah Ferrario (a classical scholar also on the faculty at Catholic U) asked a basic question: could the texts of Aeschylus' original tragedies serve as operatic libretti in their own right, without adaptation beyond translation and cuts? The Oresteia Project is an ongoing venture to answer this question, and to observe how ancient dramatic structures behave on a contemporary operatic stage. 

Ancient Greek drama, in performance in 5th-century BCE Athens, was a combination of speech, song, and dance. The chorus sang and danced, and the principal characters spoke and sung their roles. Although some commentators believe that the tragedies were sung all the way through, the majority of scholarly opinion notes that the meters of the ancient poetry varied according to the intended performative use of the words - that is, certain meters were spoken, certain meters were clearly intended to be sung.  

Noting that western opera was born around 1600 in an attempt to revive the imagined performance of tradition of ancient Greek tragedy, creating new operas to ancient Greek texts is entirely consistent with operatic tradition.

The libretti for each of the three operas has been translated directly from the ancient Greek, so every word in the libretti can be traced back to Aeschylus.

The libretti are much shorter than the plays themselves (Agamemnon alone consists of more than 1600 lines!), and so many cuts were necessary. However, Ferrario and Simpson have aimed to approximate, as much as possible, the proportions of the original dramas even with the cuts.

The music is fully contemporary. The structure of the operas resembles that of traditional operas, with arias, duets, recitatives and scenas, and - of course - choruses.

An excerpt from The Double Axe, suite from my three operas on the ancient Greek tragic cycle "The Oresteia." Music by me, English libretto translated from the ancient Greek by Sarah B. Ferrario. Premiere at the Harman Center for the Arts in Washington, DC, May 2019. I am conducting.

The Operas in Performance

Cross-disciplinary endeavor is central to the performance of tragedy, and has been the case with The Oresteia Project, as well. For the chamber and main-stage orchestral productions of Agamemnon, for example, a troupe of dancers participated in several of the choruses, helping to illuminate the text's imagery. For the semi-staged production of The Libation Bearers, silent films were commissioned by Chicago-based filmmaker Nicholas Ferrario to complement several of the choruses. And, as was the case with Agamemnon, the 2006 premiere production of The Furies featured a fully dancing chorus of twelve furies. 

Roles by Opera