Diamanda Galas

Diamanda Galas is a performer whose work divides people into two very polarized groups: those who love and respect her work and those who think she is absolutely crazy. Her career is at times overshadowed by certain pieces of her work in which she screams, cries, and imitates possession by demons all during a stage show that makes the viewer think they are surely in hell. In actuality Galas is a multitalented performer with years of experience and decades of training in the very well respected arts of jazz piano and composition and operatic singing. Despite her critics Galas has a staying power and body of work that make her sheer magnetism undeniable.
Galas was born in 1955 in San Diego California. Her family is of Greek descent and she was raised in the Greek Orthodox Church. The stirring, haunting melodies of this religious musical tradition as well as the long melismatic passages of its vocal parts influence Galas to this day. She is only able to sing this, however, due to the classical and jazz musical and vocal training she had from a young age.

Billie Holiday's original recording of "Gloomy Sunday"

Galas's live rendition

Many have said that the explorations of loss, suffering and desperation explored in her work is a direct reflection of her heritage as it seems to invoke a sort of universal “Greek soul,” the result of the Greeks being an oppressed minority in their own country for centuries at the hands of the Ottoman empire until their liberation in the 1820’s.

Example of melismatic phrasing within Greek Orthodox chanting
She also trained in the visual arts and soon began to go abroad as a young adult to engage in international productions. In 1979 she performed at the Festival D’Avignon in France as the lead in the opera "Un Jour comme un autre", or “A Day Like Any Other” by composer Vinko Globokar. The work was based upon Amnesty International's documentation of the arrest and torture of a Turkish woman for alleged treason.
Galas has cultivated a look and style on stage that further separates her from any other performer, especially female performers. She has typically Greek dark features, long black hair, a striking brow and piercing eyes. She accentuates this by wearing dark eyeliner and eye makeup, dramatic clothing often black clothing that adds a romantic yet unnerving ambience to her presence and makeup that accents the strong bone structure she possesses. This, in short makes her appearance as arresting and pointed as her work. It also gives her a ghostly and demonic look that gives what many call a “goth” ambience to her emotionally stunning performances. She often appears to be both bewitching and a literal witch, which she strangely enough provided a voice for in 1982’s Conan the Barbarian movie.
In the mid ‘80’s Galas was performing in various productions, many of which she created herself. Slowly word began growing of person after person contracting something called AIDS, and gradually many in artistic circles and middle-America knew someone who was suffering from the new disease. Government remained largely silent about the crisis for years; little funding was given to medical research fro study and the search for a cure and the popular consensus was that this problem was almost a moral disease- something that was only spread by the gay and promiscuous. It was even dubbed “the gay cancer” by some. Outraged at the shame that silenced so many and the voiceless status of people all around becoming sicker many artists and everyday citizens took to the streets in protests and walks that had one goal: raising awareness about the severity and the scale of the disease. They knew that once the public saw how badly the disease ravaged its victims it would be much easier to get support for research and medicine. Many artists started creating new works based on their experiences with the epidemic, some of whom had contracted AIDS and others who saw the disease take the spirit out of their closest friends.
Galas’s contribution to this grass-roots movement was a work called Plague Mass, a full length piece in which she embodied all sides of the AIDS debate. She cried and yelled, sang operatically and recited bible passages about sin and evil all while imitating glossolalia, or speaking in tongues. She embodied sinner and saint as she took the viewer on a journey through the pain and emotion experienced by those with a personal connection to the disease and also channeled the rage and primal crying scream of everyone who knew that their outrage and concern for those suffering was going unheard by those in power. Many believed that the lack of support by the mainstream media for AIDS awareness was a result of the idea that gay people were morally corrupt and somehow disserved the sickness as punishment. Her use of passages from the bible was also a reference to her disdain at the condemnation of homosexuals by the Roman Catholic Church and the lack of simple empathy and understanding that should have outpoured from the supposedly tolerant and loving church for an oppressed sick minority. Galas also performed the piece, either ironically or fittingly in the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York. She adapted a pervious work to create plague mass after she learned that her brother had contracted the disease, which he eventually died from. She also had the phrase “we are all HIV+” tattooed on her knuckles.
Plague Mass is undeniably the work that Galas is most famous for yet she also received the most criticism for it. Some complain that the work is simply frightening and incomprehensible unless you know the source for her emotional outbursts in the piece. Others lambaste her for performing the piece in private shows and for an audience that arguably had to like her and was probably already aware of the AIDS crisis.

Excerpts from "From Eyes Without Blood" from Plague Mass

Saint Of The Pit

Much of her work has actually been musical in nature as she has composed her own jazz and rock pieces as well as putting her unique touch on classical American country tunes and the work of Ella Fitzgerald. In 1994 she recorded The Sporting Life, a full length rock album in collaboration with Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, who had admired her work for years. It is arguably the most mainstream and visible work done by Galas as following its release she and Jones embarked on a typical press junket and performance schedule to publicize the album. In her explorations of different media and genres Galas has demonstrated the personification of America and what it is to be an American; she has spent years learning and training in classical forms and respecting preexisting forms of music only to use all of this knowledge to selectively appropriate works she loves and put her own very unique voice to it.
Diamanda Galas is a world class talent and fearless woman who has never been afraid not only to be herself but to present her work honestly and without the worry of appearing beautiful or attractive to secure an audience. Through her stage work, her music and her outspoken activism viewers not only get entertainment with a message but a female performer who is 100% original and takes no prisoners.


WORKS CITED

http://www.diamandagalas.com/

http://www.amazings.com/articles/article0022.html

http://sonic.net/~goblin/9galas.html

http://somewhere.org/NAR/work_excerpts/galas/main.htm

http://newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=2311

http://www.diamandagalas.com/press/live/serpenta/theobserver_0901.htm