Nestor Taylor’s oratorio-like opera tells the true story of a selfless mother who becomes a tragic heroine in the midst of a brutal war for the love of her children.

During the 1940s, a civil war raged in Greece between communist partisans and right-wing government troops. Unfortunately, the northern Greek mountain village of Lia, a tight-knit, strictly patriarchal and superstitious community where young peasant woman Eleni Gatzoyiannis is raising five children alone, lies on the marching path of the communist fighters. From then on, the villagers had to fear for their lives: those who did not serve the partisans were tortured and executed. Food is confiscated, villagers are forced to work and not only men but also the teenage daughters Elenis and other young unmarried women are threatened with forced recruitment. In order to protect her two eldest from this fate and to prevent the younger siblings from being deported to communist “brother states”, Eleni rebels against the Red Terror. She organizes her children’s escape to America. But for this, like hundreds of thousands of other Greek civilians, she has to pay with her life.

Touching arias and duets, effective choral numbers and harrowing scenes: based on the autobiographical bestseller by Nicholas Gage (born Nikolaos Gatzoyiannis), the youngest son of the protagonist, Eleni is a gripping confession against the horrors of war and the atrocities associated with it.