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Old 07-18-2017, 01:03 PM
dj dj is offline
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Join Date: Jan 1970
Location: Balderson, Ontario, Canada, 100 kms (60 miles) from Ottawa
Posts: 799
Default Some ancient Greece with a new twist

Hi, all:

I thought I'd put this up for people to hear.

We are working on a new musical adaptation of Aristophanes' 411 B.C. comedy Lysistrata. It's all about how the women of Greece band together to put a stop to a war: it's fun, funny, outrageous and very sexy.

And, I think we've created a new version that keeps the intent of the original and adds a lot of 21st century sass to it.

After an Act One that includes numbers like "Athens", a jazz nod to "New York, New York, it's a wonderful town", "Lysistrata's Plan", with lyrics like "The men can never beat us if they have to stand for long" and "Shut Your Mouth", in which the women take over running the country, I wanted a quiet song to end the act, but hadn't been able to get a hook into one until last week, when two fragments of ancient songs came together into a unique piece.

The first part is based on "You wild goddesses who dart across the sky" which is a fifth century B.C. fragment of music from the play Orestes and which may have been composed by the great classical Greek dramatist Euripides himself.

The second part is based on the "Seikolos Epitaph", which is the oldest complete song we have, dating from the 1st century A.D. It was found carved on a short pillar (a plinth, really) that a Greek family had used for centuries as a planter holder. The epitaph reads "I have been placed here by Seikolos, as a long-lasting memorial to his love", and below that is a song complete with Greek notation and lyric.

Lysistrata, whose husband has been away at war for many months, prays to the gods that he be returned safely. As she finishes singing, she exits, leaving the stage empty for the last few bars as the lights fade. It's not snappy jazz, but it ends the act on just the right note.

Enjoy.
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