commissioned by: Opera North and The Manchester International Festival

premiere: Library Theatre, The Manchester International Festival  U.K. – July 2008

collaborators: devised and designed – Faulty Optic  music – mira calix

instrumentation: voice, electronics, viola, violoncello, clarinet

format: theatrical performance:

Eurydice dies tragically on her wedding day. Orpheus, her fiancée, bargains to bring her back from the Land of the Dead.
Greedy to gaze upon his bride once more, he breaks the deal he has made with Pluto, the god of Hades and she is lost forever. Orpheus’ moans of anguish angers the once friendly Bacchae, who rip him to shreds before throwing his dismembered body into the river where his head can still be heard singing… apparently!
What happened after Orpheus failed to rescue Eurydice from the Underworld?
Dead Wedding continues the story of the Orpheus myth. A collaboration between cult puppetry company Faulty Optic and composer Mira Calix.
Orpheus has found most of his strewn body parts except his legs. And now he finds himself in Hades and of course … he’s dead.
If he remarries Eurydice in Hades, all will be fine, they will be together for eternity. But she has a more pressing task as she desperately tries to wash something terrible away. Slowly her faltering memories start
to corrode as the ferryman churns up the filthy waters sending ripples throughout the whole of the Underworld.
A visual and sonic feast, Dead Wedding includes extreme Olympian rituals, the devil’s finger itself and Elysium – the only hope of complete rest for the wicked.
To mark the 400th anniversary of the invention of opera, Faulty Optic and Mira Calix re-invent one of the great myths, in a new work for puppets, film, laptop and live musicians.

material from the production was release on 3 commissions: the elephant in the room