Domna’s Song

Item

Title

Domna’s Song

Date

2–4 April 2021

Date Issued

2021

Abstract

"She was “most noble and brave,” according to Dimitrios Ypsilantis; she “fought like a man,” according to historian Ioannis Filimon; she was the “widow of the deceased Captain Antonios Visvizis”, for the Greek administration, “a chief captainess”, in the folk song of her native place, and an “obedient patriot”, as she herself signed in her letters. Who was the Thracian Domna Visvizi in the end, a woman so little-remembered by history? Condemned to poverty and obscurity by the embryonic Greek state, she was later exiled to the margins of the standard national and patriarchal narrative of the 1821 Greek Revolution. Her bust stands now on the Avenue of Heroes in the Pedion tou Areos park in Athens, a symbolic recognition by the state in return for her contribution to “building the golden palace of Liberty”. She did have, though, a voice of her own, which, thanks to fiction, can break through two centuries of silence. Domna Visvizi’s story in the form of a monologue with stasimon is portrayed with sensitivity by actress Syrmo Keke, and woven through means of music theatre by a female creative team consisting of journalist/author Maro Vasiliadou, composer Martha Mavroidi –who knowledgeably interlaces folk musical styles with contemporary ones – and director Maria Magkanari. Domna’s Song uses historical evidence (archive records, testimonies of the time, documents, ship logs, letters) as raw material, and processes it with various writing styles, ranging from the folk 15-syllable verse to experiential writing, to convey the external reality of events and the characters’ inner life. In the turbulent years of the Greek Revolution, a lesser-known heroine of the Greek struggle for independence engages in a conversation with herself, her time, and the modern-day audience. "
(Edited description from organiser’s website: https://2021.nationalopera.gr/art-never-ending-revolution)