Medusa restores a silenced mythological female voice to its rightful place. It raises the question: who is she? A question we might equally ask of a Lucrezia (Borgia) or a Lucia (di Lammermoor).
Iain Bell, Lydia Steier and De Munt bring their own Medusa. Multiple questions arose that evening: "Why does Medusa need a voice? Why another mythological opera?" Here I wonder what chord is being struck. Why not? Isn't this precisely about the woman rather than yet another retelling of the myth?
Medusa is not only a contemporary opera, but also a gateway to new interpretations and characters. Bell & Steier already look refreshingly beyond the original – male – myth.
Who/what is (the) Medusa?
The Medusa myth is universally known. Many heroes fall at her feet, until Perseus defeats her. But who is Medusa? In pop culture, Greek mythology is sometimes boiled down to "Zeus/Poseidon/... desired the fair x, with all the consequences that entailed." The woman is reduced to a prop that sets the action in motion. She pays the price: she transforms into a cow (Io), a bear (Callisto), or, in Medusa's case, a gorgon with serpent hair and a deadly gaze.
"We are filling in the dot dot dot after Poseidon sexually assaults Medusa," sounds the word from the Bell and Steier team. Medusa explores pain and shared trauma.1 Make no mistake: Medusa is a challenge to adapt, because its hidden core revolves around sexual assault, trauma, and powerlessness – something the original myth ignores. Bell and Steier lay bare what Medusa's fate truly entails.
Sexual harassment and abuse are certainly not new in opera history (De Munt's upcoming opera, the returning Villalobos production of Puccini's Tosca, is an example of this).2 But they are often drivers that are glossed over quickly, or even lightly. Haven't we moved past that mentality at last? Medusa has at least got it right.
“Sleep my starchild, sleep"
Mention Medusa (soprano Claudia Boyle), and you mention Perseus (tenor Josh Lovell). Bell & Steier weave their myths without doing Medusa's story an injustice. They do this through a melodic lullaby that forms a tragic leitmotif throughout the opera. "Sleep my starchild, sleep," sing both Perseus' mother Danae (mezzo-soprano Marie-Juliette Ghazarian) and Medusa as pseudo-mother.
The orchestral composition is a menacing, dissonant-sounding hussar piece that stretches languidly behind this leitmotif. The opera opens with an invisible, ominous ghostly chorus. The male choir seems to represent Poseidon's (bass Konstantin Gorny) threatening intent. This before we even lay eyes on the cruel god. The influences of Richard Strauss' Elektra (1909) are clearly audible. Psychology and emotion resonate in atonal dissonance. It is free of melody, unless painful longings are broached.
This is interspersed with the closed female world, depicted by Athena's priestess chorus. This too is cruel and disturbing. It is here that Gorny's Poseidon strikes. The opera makes excellent use of his powerful bass voice. The rape of Medusa is brief—banally brief—compared to the consequences that follow. The merciless Athena, impressively portrayed by soprano Mary Elizabeth Williams, rages with an iron flood of sound against her priestesses. Finnish soprano Anu Komsi (High Priestess) uses her crystalline voice to convey the maddening consequences of their failure. Madness, rage, and not a shred of pity for the "whore" who has desecrated Athena's temple. Medusa transforms: her identity is stripped from her.
Act two is an introspection. The woman Medusa does not exist; she is a monster. Surrounded by her gorgon sisters (mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy as Euryale and soprano Angela Denoke as Stheno) she feels fractured. Her sweet voice has been replaced by a tone of desperation. Brief melismatic sections fragment back to bel canto mad scenes, as in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor (1835). The tragic, yet also moving, duet between Medusa and "the star child" Perseus reveals the longing with which she wishes to die: her own (family) dreams that have been brutally taken from her.
With Medusa Bell, Steier, and de Munt touch upon something deeply integral. It is a production that must be seen, both for its subject matter, the composition, and the talented cast. I posed the question "Can we give more women in (opera) history their voice back?" to Bell. I already have the feeling that Medusa is certainly not the last time we will hear from these women. Let us begin, but certainly not end, with Medusa.
1 This section is a paraphrase based on the press moment with Iain Bell and Lydia Steier. This took place prior to the opera premiere on 05/05/2026.
2 The 2026 opera production of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca (17/06-01/07/2026) is a revival of de Munt's successful 2021 production. The direction is by Rafael R. Villalobos.
