Library Rock's Backpages

Diamanda Galás Prepares To Perform A New Defixiones

Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 2 September 2005

DIAMANDA GALÁS has had a talent for plucking beauty from the maw of horror for more than 20 years – right from her first solo recording, 1984's Diamanda Galás (Metalanguage), which explored the psychology of imprisonment in 'Panoptikon' and commemorated those killed by the 1967-'74 Greek junta in 'Tragouthia apo to aima exoun phonos', which translates as 'Song from the Blood of Those Murdered'. But her latest concert work, the Mass Defixiones: Will and Testament – Orders from the Dead, which gets its East Coast debut at New York City's Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University in performances September 8 and 10, is her most harrowing opus.

Total word count of piece: 1007

Subscribe

Becoming a member is easy. Membership gives you access to all the thousands of articles in the library.

Click here to go to Subscribe page.

Click here for academic and other group subscriptions.