Songs from Hades with Photos

Emily Thomp­son, one of the direc­tors of the sum­mer Mannes Opera Work­shop, approached me about writ­ing some songs for this season’s per­for­mances. She’s a fine lyri­cist and had the inspired idea of work­ing with the mythol­ogy of Hades and Perse­phone. She sent me sev­eral dif­fer­ent lyrics, two of which we staged this past week, July 19 & 20, at St. Paul and St. Andrew Methodist Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Here we have two pics (click for larger size): First, Fran­cisco San­ti­ago as Hades’s but­ler tries to con­vince Perse­phone (Chiara Issa) to Try A Lit­tle Taste. Next, Perse­phone ask Hades (Thad Fer­gu­son) to let her return to the liv­ing world, as she must be Where There Is Light.

Will there be more to come from this project? Stay tuned!


About Richard D. Russell

This was written by Richard D. Russell, New York City based composer of fine music.