When Aristophanes dropped “Lysistrata” in 411 BC, Ancient Greece didn’t know how to react.
The play follows Lysistrata, a woman who comes up with a plan to end the Peloponnesian War—then an ongoing conflict—by persuading all the women in Greece to go on a sex strike. At the time, it was cutting-edge commentary on sexual dynamics under patriarchy. But how could a 2,400-year-old story be relevant in today’s world?
In 2005, “Lysistrata” was adapted into an opera by American librettist Mark Adamo, and first premiered at the Houston Grand Opera. On Feb. 15, the play will have its Boston premiere at the New England Conservatory as a concert, right in time for Valentine’s Day weekend.
Adamo believes that despite its ancient source text, the subject matter of “Lysistrata” remains timeless. “The piece is never not topical, because there’s always a war somewhere,” he said in an interview with The Beacon. “The premiere was right after the U.S. went into Iraq. I think the day we opened, there were something like 900 readings of the play all over the country.”
But Adamo reworked much of “Lysistrata” to turn it into an opera—in fact, only three scenes from the play are kept intact. Though the story has a strong narrative foundation, it lacked proper characterization, he said. In the adaptation, Adamo fleshes out Lysistrata’s character and motives, adds new roles, and introduces a romantic conflict between the titular character and Nico, the ruler of Athens.
“One of the reasons I chose [to adapt] it is because it was all plot and no character,” Adamo said. “There’s a wonderful broadness and vividness to the play, but I had to ask myself, ‘Why is this important now?’ And I realized, the conflict between lovers can also feel like a kind of war.”
Adamo didn’t begin his career writing for opera. As a dramatic writing student at New York University, he was primarily focused on musical theater, modeling his work on the likes of Steven Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein. Because of his background, Adamo’s work combines classical operatic influences with musical theater sensibilities, to which he attributes his success.
His first opera, which premiered in 1998, was an adaptation of “Little Women.” When it premiered at the Houston Grand Opera, it was an instant critical and commercial success, and it has since been performed over 70 times, according to Adamo’s website. He claims its popularity has helped push opera companies to produce more newly written works.
“The Met had not touched a new composer for decades, but if you look at their programming now, it’s half their work,” Adamo said. “That’s partly because pieces like ‘Little Women’ and ‘Lysistrata’ have shown opera companies that the new can be as, if not more, exciting and substantial than the old.”
For decades, opera was treated as prestigious foreign art, and opera companies would only put on established plays from European countries.
“America was a rich country, but Europeans did not think that America was a particularly civilized country,” Adamo said. “We were the first country to insist on the piece in its original language, which is one of the reasons the opera came to acquire its reputation of being remote.”
Adamo claims the success of “Little Women” played a part in normalizing performances of newly written operas. As he remarks, when Giuseppe Verdi—a librettist from the 1800s whose operas remain popular today—was alive, opera companies were performing much more new work. He hopes to break down accessibility barriers with his operas, by proving that the historic medium of opera can tell modern stories, and be funny, too.
“Precisely because I am not relying on nostalgia or prestige, I am trying to tell a story that is intelligible to the people who are alive now,” Adamo said. “When it’s funny, it’s extremely funny. When it’s moving, it’s very moving, and when it’s political, it’s bare-knuckle.”
