Nestor Taylor’s oratorio-like opera tells the story, based on true events, of a selfless mother who becomes a tragic heroine out of love for her children in the midst of a brutal war. It will be premiered at Theater Erfurt on Decwmber 3rd, 2022.
During the 1940s, a civil war rages in Greece between communist partisans and right-wing government troops. Unfortunately, the northern Greek mountain village of Lia, a tightly knit, strictly patriarchal and superstitious community where the young farmer’s wife Eleni Gatzoyiannis is raising five children alone, is on the march of the communist fighters. The villagers must henceforth fear for their lives: Anyone who does not serve the partisans is tortured and executed. Food is confiscated, villagers are forced to work and not only men, but also Eleni’s adolescent daughters and other young unmarried women are threatened with forced recruitment. To save her two eldest from this fate and to prevent the younger siblings from being forcibly sent to communist “brother states”, Eleni rebels against the Red Terror. She organises the escape of her children to America. But she, like hundreds of thousands of other Greek civilians, has to pay for this with her life.
Touching arias and duets, effective choral numbers and harrowing scenes: Based on the autobiographical bestseller by Nicholas Gage (née Nikolaos Gatzoyiannis), the youngest son of the protagonist, Eleni is a gripping confession against the horrors of war and the associated atrocities.
Lyric drama in two acts
Libretto by Fergus Currie
based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Gage
In English with surtitles
Musical direction Myron Michailidis
Production Guy Montavon
Set design Eric Chevalier
Dramaturgy Larissa Wieczorek
Duration 2 h
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