Lysistrata or, The Nude Goddess; music and libretto by Mark Adamo, is very loosely based on the play by Aristophanes. It’s not a simple farce or anti-war propaganda piece. Rather it’s a complex interrogation of various dualities; male/female, peace/war, eros/thanatos, lust/love and, perhaps above all, everything that’s implied by the duo Ares/Aphrodite. So, although we are still in Athens during the Peloponnesian war and there’s still a sex strike it’s not Aristophanes. If there’s an overarching idea it’s that we all want love and we all want peace but on what/whose terms?
Mark Adamo’s Lysistrata
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Once in a while one comes across a really impressive new opera and I would put The Lord of Cries; music by John Corigliano, text by Mark Adamo, into that category. It’s an example of how opera is good at telling “big stories”. In this case the base material is Euripides’ Bacchae but Adamo has relocated it to 19th century London and very cleverly layered onto it the core elements of Bram Stoker’s Dracula to create a multi-layered and subtle psychological thriller.
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