Olagon: an opera

Director

production designer

Currently a work in process, Olagón had a development residency at Princeton University in 2023, led by Mark DeChiazza and music director Gabriel Crouch. The residency culminated in a workshop presentation of selections from the opera, performed by a mixed professional and student ensemble.

SYNOPSIS

Olagón is a kaleidoscopic retelling of the ancient Irish epic The Táin, set in modern Ireland during the height of the Celtic Tiger (pre-2008). Queen Medhbh and her estranged husband, the lonely and morose King Ailill, are increasingly pulled apart by Medhbh’s growing appetite for power and excess. Ailill sinks into a nostalgic funk, pining for their lost love and the kingdom’s past glory, while Medhbh’s new lovers—the would-be revolutionaries Fergus O’Blique and Manus Machination—draw her into their battles by appealing to her ambition.

A long-lost hermit brother, Marbhan, passes between Medhbh’s dreams, offering a different path, inspiring reflection and hope. But the respite proves a mirage: Medhbh cannot resist the lure of danger, thrill-seeking, and intoxication. Ailill watches helplessly, dissolving into despondency and drink. Hallucinating visions of past and future and what might have been, Medhbh’s life ends in a sordid spectacle of a narcotic overdose in a parking lot. Though some genuinely mourn the loss of such an incendiary force, her funeral is padded with semiprofessional mourners who keen and moan the refrain “ochón agus ochón” to help others grieve. Ailill, earnestly bereft, can only slump.

Music by Dan Trueman

Text by Paul Muldoon

Featuring Iarla Ó lionáird and Gelsey Bell

Direction and Production Design by Mark DeChiazza