Hopkins Center
Dartmouth College
November 23, 1993

There Are No More Tickets To The Funeral, part of Diamanda Galas' trilogy Masque of the Red Death, was performed in Spaulding Auditorium along with many songs featured on her latest CD from Mute Records entitled The Singer. Galas proved to be a challenging addition to Dartmouth's repertoire.

In 1984 Diamanda Galas began work on Masque of the Red Death, a work she has committed to write for the rest of her life. New Year's Day 1989 marked the premiere performance of the Masque at Queen Elizabeth Hall in the United Kingdom. In 1990, Galas premiered There Are No More Tickets to the Funeral at the Cathedral Saint John the Divine in New York, the second largest cathedral in the world. Days prior to the premiere, Galas was arrested at St. Paul's during an ACT-UP demonstration. Headlines read "Arrested at St. Paul's; performing at St. John's." Galas, in addition to her powerful music, has actively been working to end bureaucratic apathy towards the AIDS crisis.

The performance was preceded by an informal lecture given by Dartmouth composer and co-author of the computer music language HMSL, Larry Polansky. Galas herself spoke to members of the electro-acoustic music studios and other composers earlier in the day. Polansky gave an interesting and informative talk about some of the early Galas pieces. This included Un Jour Comme Une Autre, a Vinko Globokar work based upon the Amnesty International documentation of a Turkish woman who was arrested and tortured to death for treason. Galas was the vocalist for this piece. It was from this performance that her solo career began, with works such as Wild Women With Steak Knives and Song from the Blood of those Murdered. Polansky alluded to the origins of the opening text to the Plague Mass from the biblical text in Leviticus; This is the law of the plague/to teach what is clean and what is unclean. Mention was also made of the published interview with RESearch Publications where Galas speaks quite frankly of her beliefs and ideas in the book Angry Women.

The first section of the concert (approximately twenty minutes) included only There are No More Tickets to the Funeral. In the Galas madwoman tradition, her solo voice with processing filled the entire hall. Hearing Galas in live performance was much more powerful than from recording. Apart from the vocal processing, her un processed voice acoustically filled the entire hall. One particular nicety was hearing an un-edited performance. We hear her struggling, the music physically tiring the singer. Frequent gasps for air made hearing Galas live a rare treat.

Galas appears on stage naked except for a loin cloth; her body covered in 'blood.' Whatever this viscous liquid was, through the brilliant lighting design of Dan Kotlowitz, this blood at times appeared to create a metallic splendor to Galas' naked body. A figure writhing in pain, Galas' passionate involvement in her performance was awe-inspiring. In addition to spectacular lighting changes, there was also an occasional burst of smoke. Hearing Galas live brought out the performance artist aspect of the work that is obviously completely lost in the recording.

Upon hitting her high coloratura, we begin hearing the Diamanda Galas that we have come to know. Her screams of pain, coupled with her apparent physical human limitations were an interesting juxtaposition. As a listener, I become very physically aware of the amount of energy Galas is capable of expending. To watch and hear her struggle, yet her coloratura reeking her commitment towards actions rather than words, she tackles the AIDS issue. In a day where many composers are focusing on a tiny microcosmic world, one where perhaps they sonically describe the biological deterioration process which occurs in the immune system, Galas takes on the problem as an entirety. Dealing with the macro-level of AIDS and it's physical embodiments, Galas is able to engage a large group of people. Ideally, she is able to coerce an audience into actions rather than empty words of support.

After intermission, Galas' entire second half consisted of voice and piano compositions by various artists. Wearing all black, her hair tightly pulled back from her face, Galas performed her own, entirely unique, adaptations of songs by Otis Rush, Bloomfield/ Gravenites, Roy Acuff, Javor/Rezso Seres, Willie Dixon, James Carr and Screamin' Jay Hawkins. Galas has a way of stretching out, literally pulling apart these songs to an unrecognizable tune. Songs included My Love Will Never Die, Reap What You Sow, Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?, Gloomy Sunday, Balm In Gilead, Insane Asylum, I Put A Spell On You, Let My People Go, See That My Grave is Kept Clean, Judgement Day, Artemis, Cris d'Aveugle and At The Dark End of The Street.

Within the group that I was seated, the biggest complaint about the Songs were that Galas performed them all in the same key. The second half was approximately one hour long. There was very little processing done to either her voice or the piano. The sound engineer was Eric Liljestrand, who co-produced The Singer and produced Vena Cava.

Overall, There Are No More Tickets To The Funeral spotlighted Galas in her more traditional madwoman state. I certainly found the first half to me much more powerful than the second. For what appeared to be a diverse audience, Galas was successful at retaining most of the audience through the intermission. Really, a much higher percentage than I've seen recently at any contemporary music concert.

Following the concert was an informal discussion group. This seemed awkward and out of place to me. People were encouraged to discuss their feelings. If they had questions about AIDS, a local community organization was available for counseling. It seems to me that Galas' intentions are to arouse people into creative actions towards fighting AIDS; the post-concert discussion seemed an anathema to that, bottling up peoples energies into a neat and controlled packaged. Her work Let's Not Chat About Despair even quotes "You who mix the words of torture, suicide, and death with scotch and soda at the bar...there is no time left for talk." The discussion never once turned to talking about either the music or the performance itself.

She continues to work on the Plague Mass and on Vena Cava. Her music is available on Mute Records and includes The Litanies of Satan (1982 re-release), Diamanda Galas (1984), The Divine Punishment (1986), Saint of the Pit (1987), You Must Be Certain of the Devil (1988), Masque of the Red Death (1989), The Plague Mass (1991), The Singer (1992), and Vena Cava (1993) . She is the director of Intravenal Sound Operations based in New York.

If Silence = Death, Galas' is very much alive. Her passionate screams shall be heard long and far.