Electric Ordo Virtutum
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) celebrated a big birthday in 1998. She would have been 900 years old. A remarkable person of any era (she befriended popes, wrote herbal textbooks, ran a nunnery, and had mystical visions), she also left her mark on music history. The first piece of music by a composer whose non-“Anonymous” name we know, was written by Hildegard (a woman!). She even invented modulation in dramatic music, half a millennium before the idea caught on.
One of her dozens of radically individualistic compositions, the Ordo Virtutum, was chosen for updating by a team of New York artists appropriately named the Hildegurls: Eve Beglarian, Lisa Bielawa, Kitty Brazelton, and Elaine Kaplinsky. These all-rounder, singing/composing/acting women, took one act each of the music drama and recast it in late 20th century Downtown terms. Their 70-minute Electric Ordo Virtutum premiered at the 1998 Lincoln Center Festival with American Opera Projects directed by ace producer (and Einstein on the Beach original cast member) Grethe Barret Holby.
Hildegard’s ecstatic chant melodies sung in Latin are woven throughout but now surrounded by more modern stuff than was available in 12th century Germany: electronic keyboards, samplers, electric guitars, and dazzling lighting and staging: (replete with red lights, smoke, and devilish scenes of binding, rape, etc.). The story depicts the soul’s struggle with Satan himself. Dozens of personified virtues appear and ensure that the former vanquishes the latter.
The disc includes a 40-page booklet with detailed production notes and translations.
