Liner Notes from the Underworld Anais Mitchell '04 opens up about her new folk opera

Author: Melissa Marshall


Audio produced by Radio Arts Middlebury.

After graduating from Middlebury College in 2004, Anais Mitchell embarked on a succesful musical career, gaining critical accalim for Hymns for the Exiled and The Brightness (2007). She has transformed her confessional alternative folk stylings into a new "folk opera" titled "Hadestown"≠≠ - a production based around the Greek myth of Orpheus. Mitchell sat down with The Campus to talk about her plunge into theatre.

The Middlebury Campus: You released your third album the Brightness in 2007. What prompted you to shift your musical focus to the stage?

Anais Mitchell: It was kind of random. I started to write some songs that seemed to come out of nowhere, and I asked myself what they were about it. They all seemed to center around the theme of the Orpheus story, which is one I've always loved. I set them aside for awhile, but every time I started to write a song, I would have to ask myself if this was just another song I was writing or if it was a song for an opera. They just sort of collected into a critical mass, and then I roped in some collaborators to actually put together the show. It kind of trickled in, but once I started to do it, I really got excited about telling a story through a cycle of songs.

TC: Has Greek mythology functioned in any other of work?

AM: I'm not a big Greek mythology buff or anything, but this particular story is one that spoke to me. And of course it's a story that's fun to write as a musician because the hero is a musician. I suppose when I'm writing other songs, certainly language that comes from the Bible or the Greco-Roman tradition sometimes creeps in, not because I study it, but because it's part of our language and part of the popular poetic tradition. So maybe some lines here or there, but I think this is the first time that I really turned my attention to a myth.

TC: You mentioned that you made references to the Bible and other Greco-Roman tradition, which is typical to the folk-genre that critics seem to categorize your music in. However, they have also credited your time in Vermont as lending a hand to the folk-influences in your music. Has growing up in a small town added a certain flavor to "Hadestown?"

AM: The world I come out of in terms of song-writing is the folk world, and I definitely play that circuit and play the festivals. It was one that I was always attracted to because lyrics are so important in that tradition and lyrics are really what get me going. But certainly, as far as "Hadestown" goes, it is that we call a folk opera, and we really couldn't think of a better term for it. It does have a lot of folk elements and symbolism: Orpheus plays a banjo, there are trains and hobos and kind of a vintage quality to it. Of course there are political themes, and protest music falls into the folk scene as well. But I couldn't call the music in the production 'folk.' Michael Chorney, who wrote the score, comes out of a jazz background, and his work is really avant and lush. There is a whole band of six instruments and the arrangements are more in the vein of dramatic music, art music - jazz sort of sensibilities. In terms of the cast, I thought a lot about coming from Vermont and how maybe this has influenced the show. What I feel so honored by is that I live in a community of people who are so creative and so game and so ready to believe in a project like this. I definitely think that this project is a result of the meeting of minds.

TC: You mentioned earlier that "Hadestown" had underlying political messages as well as being set in the 1930s Depression Era. What messages do you hope modern audiences will take from the folk opera?

AM: That's kind of tricky. The idea has always been from the start that the show takes place out of time - that it is a futuristic or archetypal story. It had a sort of symbolism that comes from the Depression Era, but this year it has definitely gone in a direction that is post-apocalyptic. The idea this year is that Persephone, the Queen of the Underworld who is associated with the change of the seasons and lives above ground half the year and below ground for the other half, has been trapped by Hades in his sort of greed and excess and subsequently, the seasons have gotten out of whack. Above ground the earth is uninhabitable, making Hadestown this sort of fortress town. So there are definitely themes - I hate to say it because I don't won't to make a parable that's too contemporary or too obvious - and connections to the global warming situation and the refugee crisis and the question of laws of the motion of people across borders. And what we do as people who are living in a place of privilege - Hadestown is not a happy place, but it is a place of privilege and a place of safety at the very least.

TC: Do you think that idea stems at all from your time at Middlebury and the infamous Middlebury Bubble?

AM: As for Middlebury being a bubble, that can be related to all of the United States and all the Western world. I mean, college is that. And there is one aspect of that which is necessary in terms of focusing on learning, reading and engaging in ideas, but on the other hand, I think it's hard to know how to respond as citizens of the world if we do this. It is an unspoken trade-off in the Hadestown show as well as in our lives. It is the question of hunger versus blindness - if you had to choose, what would you choose? And it's hard to say, but I think that most of us would choose to close our eyes to things around us that we don't want to see. And I am definitely guilty of this as well.

TC: Were you involved in theatre at your time at Middlebury College?

AM: No, I took one acting class and it was a real challenge for me. And acted when I was a kid, but once I reached my awkward stage I never really felt comfortable acting after that. And people say it's just like playing a music show, but I totally disagree - it's a whole different world. When you get to do a music show you can be who you are and stand behind a microphone. I think it's much easier than trying to take on the energy of another character. So the short answer is no, but the theatre world is one that I have always admired a lot. I think it's such a beautiful genre and so expressive. There is so much potential, especially in musical theatre, for real emotional catharsis for the audience. It's an exciting world, and I would definitely like to hang out there for a while.