Over two thousand years ago, the ancient Greek playwright Euripides penned the tragedy Hippolytus, a story that explored the…well, “tragedies” that can occur when humans fail to understand one another.
Only slightly less than two thousand years ago, Julia Holter released Tragedy, her appropriately-titled debut album inspired by Euripides’ play. Now, perhaps sensing a chance to tap into the general current state of world affairs, Holter is set to perform The Tragedy Opera, a brand new (you guessed it) opera inspired by her album Tragedy inspired by the ancient Greek tragedy. #Tragedy.
Unlike that control-freak Euripides, Holter collaborated with fellow Los Angeles-based artists Yelena Zhelezov and Zoe Aja Moore to help bring The Tragedy Opera to life, and the trio will perform new arrangements of the sounds from Tragedy, with additional musical help from the also Los Angeles-based experimental classical music ensemble wild Up. As far as what to expect from the visual side of things, The Tragedy Opera promises to “draw upon the visual elements that originally inspired the music—shadows, reflections, echoes, fragments, statues—and will layer vocal performers, multiple channels of video (both live and sourced content), and performing objects to create a haunting emotional landscape.”
You might want to start dusting off your opera glasses now, because The Tragedy Opera will be staged on June 22 and 23 at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, NY. You can find out more information about the performance and purchase tickets for it here. And you can ruin the whole plot for yourself ahead of time by checking out the finale to the album-version of Tragedy down below.
More about: Julia Holter
