Kassandra by Pablo Ortiz/Sergio Blanco

Kassandra, the cursed priestess of ancient Greek mythology, possesses the gift of foreseeing the future. However, like all the oracles of the ancient Greek world, she also sees the past; the oracle’s insight encompasses both the present and the absent. Despite being given the gist of prophecy, Kassandra was cursed by the god Apollo for her words to not to be believed by anyone. Inside her, there is inherent both the tragic fate of humanity and that of the stranger, the refugee and the socially and gender marginalised. She sings and speaks in broken English, the English of someone who hardly knows the language and who is driven by the desire to be understood. The monologue Kassandra by Uruguayan dramaturg Sergio Blanco is transformed into an opera following a joint commission by the Alternative Stage of the Greek National Opera and the Experimentation Center of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, entrusted to the distinguished Argentine composer Pablo Ortiz. The lead role is performed by the transgender soprano María Castillo de Lima, a true vocal phenomenon, while the direction is undertaken by Diana Theocharidi and Alexandros Efklidis. Kassandra is a heroine who unites time periods and, in this opera, links myth to the present. She also links the aesthetics of the dramaturg Sergio Blanco with those of the composer Pablo Ortiz, creators who together elaborate the incessant oscillation between past, present and future. These universes, so distant from each other, are contained in a single space in the staging conception of Diana Theocharidi and Alexandros Efklidis.