Spoleto Festival Commissions a World Premiere Opera for the 2024 Season

Grounded in testimonies from survivors and families of those afflicted by uppgivenhetssyndrom, or resignation syndrome, the evocative opera follows the experiences of a mother, Hannah, and her 12-year-old daughter, H’ala, who suffers from a traumatic response to the state of living in the limbo of displacement. Evident in refugee camps around the world, resignation syndrome causes the child, most often between the ages of 8 to 15, to fall into a non-responsive sleep. This opera uses elements from myths and fairy tales to create a 21st-century fantasia.

Loosely based on the Greek myth of Persephone and Demeter, Ruinous Gods traces H’ala’s journey to an “underworld” landscape where she is joined by other children who have fled their homes. As H’ala sleeps, Hannah navigates the effects of her daughter’s detachment and faces unforgiving realities of their refugee status. Though the work does not name a specific setting, pointed moments allude to camps on the island of Lesvos, the practice of familial separation, deadly water crossings, and a figure named “Jeb Fezos.” Despite the painful context of the characters’ situation, the work finds moments of levity in the darkest moments.

“This is a work about forced migration, with themes that should be at the forefront of our minds,” says Mena Hanna. “Evoking the current crisis at the US Southern border and the calamities happening in the Mediterranean, Europe, the Middle East, Ruinous Gods speaks to the maddening political morass that drags down the world’s most vulnerable. Reverberations of this piece shook me to my core, especially as a father.”

Worldwide, more than 117 million people are displaced, and nearly half of them are children, notes librettist Lisa Schlesinger, a transdisciplinary writer and theater activist committed to social and eco-justice. “The United Nations Human Rights Council commission on the welfare of children declared that 7 million children are deprived of their liberty. Yet children literally embody the future. This opera challenges us to save the future for the children by examining our current ecological and environmental state as well as the discriminatory practices against its many inhabitants.”

Schlesinger’s initial thoughts for this project began pre-pandemic, and since she and composer Layale Chaker began collaborating in early 2020, have continued to evolve the work. “The refugee crisis is as relevant today as ever,” says Schlesinger. “This April, asylum seekers were purposely abandoned on an emergency life raft in the Aegean Sea. The stories are everywhere—we cannot close our eyes to them.”

Schlesinger and Chaker state that Ruinous Gods also “challenges political otherness through music that amplifies marginalized voices and incites and fosters curiosity, connection, empathy, and openness.”

“In the past four years, this work has seen many rewrites as we responded to drastic changes in current events,” says Chaker. “Yet the core of this work remained constant: that our common human condition always lies in the palms of our children’s hands. This story invites reflection on current political and social practices, and their repercussions on the young.”

Musically, the work is rooted in the traditions of Arabic Maqam and Western classical music. Created for six soloists, a chorus, and a chamber ensemble of strings, oboe/English horn, bassoon, flute, clarinet, harp, percussion, and piano, the score includes the use of a microtonal keyboard. “Its musical branches reach a multitude of musical landscapes and languages spanning contemporary classical music with influences from Arabic, Ottoman, Hindustani, Persian, Hindustani music, as well as jazz and free improvisation,” continues Chaker. “It alludes in form and structure to the Chorus in ancient Greek tragedy, while some sung texts also stem from Babylonian and Assyrian divinations and incantations. The music of Ruinous Gods crosses different fields, including spoken word, pushing boundaries of forms and structures. Likewise, this musical experimentation aims to challenge canonical rules, rethinking microtonality, the relationships between untampered modality and tempered harmony, and cyclical and linear rhythms.”

Additional opera details, including the cast and creative team, will be announced later this year.