‘Sprouting from her damned scalp a hundred hungry, hissing snakes. These will never sleep: and never again shall she.’
– Medusa, Act I, Scene 2  

A song from the depths of the ocean reaches the ears of three sisters. While Stheno and Euryale recognize the call of Poseidon demanding Medusa’s submission, the latter hears only a distant lullaby, similar to that a mother sings to her child. Hoping to protect her from the god of the sea, her sisters send her to live with the priestesses of Athena’s temple. One day, while Medusa is watching over the sacred flame of the goddess alone, Poseidon emerges from the waves and rapes the young woman, thus defiling the temple. To punish her for this desecration, Athena turns Medusa into a monstrous creature: her hair becomes a nest of snakes and her gaze turns anyone who looks at her to stone. This terrifying power arouses the lust of heroes, who pursue her in her exile …  

An iconic figure in Greek mythology, Medusa has inspired artists throughout the centuries, including Da Vinci, Rubens, Caravaggio, Cellini, Rodin and Picasso, among many others. In this new score commissioned by La Monnaie, composer Iain Bell and director and librettist Lydia Steier explore the human dimension of this great myth. Given voice by soprano Claudia Boyle, Medusa is reborn as a complex and deeply moving woman, alone amid the stone statues of those who, in their thirst for glory, tried to destroy her. Dare to meet her gaze. Perhaps you will see who she really is.