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Keep on walking and you don't look back till you get to the bottomland
Anaïs Mitchell's Hadestown (2010) is an American folk opera of Orpheus and Eurydike and it is exactly as haunting as that description makes one hope.
By now the relevant people on my friendlist should know whether they want a copy or not, but I'll keep talking just in case.
The setting is the hard-up 1930's, or it's the penniless near future. Hades' realm is a mining town of glitter and grit where everyone owes their soul to the company store—remember that one of his titles is Πλούτων, the rich one—or it is actually the land of the dead. Eurydike's trip is one-way and underground. But she's not snatched from life unconsenting: like Cocteau's Orphée (1949), Hadestown posits a crisscross of love affairs between the worlds above and below. Eurydike is seduced down by Hades; Orpheus, following her, attracts the attention of Persephone. He ends like the myth, but it is Eurydike and Persephone who remember him together in the dark.
The result is not Tom Waits and neither is it O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), although neither of those models would have been a failure. It's a genuine opera; as much as Hadestown reminded me of Orphée, the way it retrofits ancient myth with the myths of a more recent time (the dust and diaspora of the Depression, the half-world of occupied France), I also thought more than once of Carlisle Floyd's Susannah. In true epic fashion, I'd love to see it reperformed. In the meantime, Mitchell herself is Eurydike; her Orpheus is Justin Vernon, singing the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. The hobo Hermes is Ben Knox Miller of The Low Anthem, hanging around the old train depot, watching everyone come and go. The traditional place of the chorus is taken by Tanya, Petra, and Rachel Haden as the Fates, triplet sisters whose voices make one close harmony. Ani DiFranco is a speakeasy-swinging Persephone who gets up to all sorts of things behind her lord's back:
You want stars? I got a skyful
Put a quarter in the slot, you'll get an eyeful
You want the moon? I got her, too
She's right here waiting in my pay-per-view
And Hades is Greg Brown, whose The Iowa Waltz (1981) was the music I fell asleep to for years. On good nights, I'd go out like a light before my parents had to flip the record over; this is why I can still sing the title track, but mostly what I remember of "The Train Carrying Jimmie Rodgers Home" is the name. To hear him offering, in his deep, dark earth of a voice, the sensuality and security Eurydike cannot be guaranteed by her starving singer—
Hey, little songbird, let me guess
He's some kind of poet and he's penniless
Give him your hand, he'll give you his hand-to-mouth
He'll write you a poem when the power's out
Why not fly south for the winter?
—was slightly a violation of my childhood and awesome.
I realize I have said nothing about the music. It's whatever the story needs it to be: stomping blues, cool-eyed jazz, indie whispers, a wailing revival choir. I have no idea if it's characteristic of Anaïs Mitchell, because all I know of her other work is one song. I can tell you it's been on repeat since I took the plastic wrap off the CD. And now I have three retellings of Orpheus and Eurydike I love.
The smell of the flowers she held in her hand
And the pollen that fell from her fingertips
And suddenly Hades was only a man
With a taste of nectar upon his lips
Singing la, la, la, la, la . . .
By now the relevant people on my friendlist should know whether they want a copy or not, but I'll keep talking just in case.
The setting is the hard-up 1930's, or it's the penniless near future. Hades' realm is a mining town of glitter and grit where everyone owes their soul to the company store—remember that one of his titles is Πλούτων, the rich one—or it is actually the land of the dead. Eurydike's trip is one-way and underground. But she's not snatched from life unconsenting: like Cocteau's Orphée (1949), Hadestown posits a crisscross of love affairs between the worlds above and below. Eurydike is seduced down by Hades; Orpheus, following her, attracts the attention of Persephone. He ends like the myth, but it is Eurydike and Persephone who remember him together in the dark.
The result is not Tom Waits and neither is it O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), although neither of those models would have been a failure. It's a genuine opera; as much as Hadestown reminded me of Orphée, the way it retrofits ancient myth with the myths of a more recent time (the dust and diaspora of the Depression, the half-world of occupied France), I also thought more than once of Carlisle Floyd's Susannah. In true epic fashion, I'd love to see it reperformed. In the meantime, Mitchell herself is Eurydike; her Orpheus is Justin Vernon, singing the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. The hobo Hermes is Ben Knox Miller of The Low Anthem, hanging around the old train depot, watching everyone come and go. The traditional place of the chorus is taken by Tanya, Petra, and Rachel Haden as the Fates, triplet sisters whose voices make one close harmony. Ani DiFranco is a speakeasy-swinging Persephone who gets up to all sorts of things behind her lord's back:
You want stars? I got a skyful
Put a quarter in the slot, you'll get an eyeful
You want the moon? I got her, too
She's right here waiting in my pay-per-view
And Hades is Greg Brown, whose The Iowa Waltz (1981) was the music I fell asleep to for years. On good nights, I'd go out like a light before my parents had to flip the record over; this is why I can still sing the title track, but mostly what I remember of "The Train Carrying Jimmie Rodgers Home" is the name. To hear him offering, in his deep, dark earth of a voice, the sensuality and security Eurydike cannot be guaranteed by her starving singer—
Hey, little songbird, let me guess
He's some kind of poet and he's penniless
Give him your hand, he'll give you his hand-to-mouth
He'll write you a poem when the power's out
Why not fly south for the winter?
—was slightly a violation of my childhood and awesome.
I realize I have said nothing about the music. It's whatever the story needs it to be: stomping blues, cool-eyed jazz, indie whispers, a wailing revival choir. I have no idea if it's characteristic of Anaïs Mitchell, because all I know of her other work is one song. I can tell you it's been on repeat since I took the plastic wrap off the CD. And now I have three retellings of Orpheus and Eurydike I love.
The smell of the flowers she held in her hand
And the pollen that fell from her fingertips
And suddenly Hades was only a man
With a taste of nectar upon his lips
Singing la, la, la, la, la . . .
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That, too.
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I think that is an entirely fair response.
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The existence of a katabasis folk opera delights me. The fact that it's awesome is just a benison.
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So this is a movie?!!
Oh man--incredible.
what
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I don't believe it's been filmed, although it was staged with at least two different casts in Vermont prior to recording this album. (I didn't see either of these productions; I didn't know they existed. I wish I had.) What I have is sort of the original cast recording insofar as it seems to be the final version of the show; what I don't know is whether it's been fully staged with Justin Vernon, Ani DiFranco et al. I discovered the opera's existence yesterday, so I'm a little hazy on the background details.
That acknowledged: you need to hear it.
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If it's performed anywhere in Boston—I am afraid of finding out that it already was, like The Red Machine and the Woods Hole Film Festival—I will absolutely let you know.
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Greg Brown is good, but I'd love to hear it with Tom Waits doing that part. :)
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The songs that I've played more often than the rest appear to be "Way Down Hadestown," "Hey, Little Songbird," "Wait for Me," "Why We Build the Wall," "Our Lady of the Underground," and "Flowers (Eurydice's Song)," but really, the entire thing.
(I also love the Brecht-and-Weill strain in the opera, which almost never expresses itself musically: "When the Chips Are Down" calls back to Die Dreigroschenoper's Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral, but that's the only explicit reference. And yet somehow you know it could have been staged in 1937 with a bare stage and chalkmarks on the floor and that would also have been right.)
Greg Brown is good, but I'd love to hear it with Tom Waits doing that part.
In this one instance, actually, I would not prefer Tom Waits. The smoke and cinder-glinting fool's gold in his voice are right for the Devil, but not for Hades. Greg Brown sounds like caverns and black water, subterranean. You can hear the Styx in him.
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yes, yes, and YES.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4_zaZ3utUY
But Greg Brown does a fine job.
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As for whether Hades is or is not the Devil, I found the line "Who makes work for idle hands?" to be both powerful, and to inform my ongoing dissatisfaction with late-stage capitalism. In addition to the traditional answer of "the Devil", there's the possible answer "Me, Hades" (or by extension, any "job-creator" (who all really deserve a tax break)), and also "people who support workfare".
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Yup, yup, yup.
I'm going to post about this too, next. Totally, totally LOVE.
If it does come to Boston, I WANT TO SEE IT.
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I would love to know what you think of it.
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That's one of my favorites. I have very high standards for underworld songs, and "Wait for Me" meets them.
i'd LOVE to see it live.
Do you know if it's touring, as it were?
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http://www.anaismitchell.com/
not extensively, but yes.
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That's NEAR ME!
Fri, Sep. 24 2010 8:00 PM Doors open at 7:00 PM
The Shea Theater
71 Avenue A
Turners Falls, MA
WITH MC SEXTET/HADESTOWN ORCHESTRA! MC6 OPENS!
CLICK FOR MORE INFO
CLICK FOR MAP
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It turned out to be not what I had hoped for. I had hoped it would be the entire album cast, performing. Instead, it was just Anais Mitchell... singing all the parts (though the background orchestra was there, and they were fabulous).
It's just NOT the same to hear one singer singing all the parts, even if she's talented--it's ridiculous in a song that's in dialogue, for instance. So, a little disappointing.
I'd go in a flash if the ever put on a show with the cast from the album, though.
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DAMMIT PRIOR COMMITMENT PLEASE PROVIDE FULL REPORT ARGH.
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I may be evangelizing about it for some time.
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Nine
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I didn't: I came back from New Hampshire and it was on my desk. My mother heard Anaïs Mitchell talking about it on NPR or WUMB and acted accordingly. I should have heard about it, but I'm out of touch.
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Nine
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Glad to spread the good word!