modern folk opera about the myth of Orpheus set in a post-apocalyptic company town

Featuring performances by an all-star cast:
Orpheus: Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon
Eurydice: Anaïs Mitchell
Hades: Greg Brown
Persephone: Ani DiFranco
Hermes: The Low Anthem’s Ben Knox Miller
The Fates: The Haden Sisters

For centuries, the tragic Greek myth of Orpheus & Eurydice, in which the lyre-playing Orpheus descends into the underworld and attempts to win back his fallen bride Eurydice through the power of music, has been mined by artists from all corners of the world — a testament to its depth and universal appeal.

Anaïs Mitchell's Hadestown, created in collaboration with composer Michael Chorney and director Ben t. Matchstick brings this timeless story into a contemporary context that is poetically, musically and visually fresh. The folk opera takes its inspiration from Depression-era America: the underworld is not the land of the dead but an exploitative company town; Hades is a sadistic wall-building boss-king whose wife Persephone moonlights as the proprietress of a speakeasy; and Orpheus wields not a lyre but a banjo.

The opera is not so much a history lesson as it is a rich patchwork of artistic vision, social commentary and raw human emotion. Old-fashioned symbols of poverty and exploitation are fused with a kind of futurism — albeit a clunky, analog, "vintage" futurism (think post-apocalyptic Jeunet & Caro films City of the Lost Children and Delicatessen) — which prompts reflection on just how much we’ve evolved (or devolved) as a society since the 1930s. Above all, Hadestown is a love story exploring what becomes of the human condition under the most tragic and trying of circumstances.

Hadestown was created by Anaïs Mitchell's with Michael Chorney and director Ben t. Matchstick. Arrangements by Todd Sickafoose. Hadestown is available on Righteous Babe Records on March 9th, 2010.