![]() Hades agrees to Orpheus's request on one condition: that Orpheus can't look back at Eurydice the entire time they're going back up. He plays a song on his lyre to convince him, and everyone in the underworld is moved. Orpheus becomes depressed without Eurydice and loses his love of music, so with the help of Apollo, he goes to the underworld to ask Hades to let Eurydice back up to the land of the living. Sure enough, one day in the woods, Eurydice steps on a snake that bites and kills her. However, Hymen, the god of marriage who blessed their wedding, warns them their marriage won't last. Orpheus is likewise taken with Eurydice's beauty, and the two fall in love and get married. In the classical myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, the couple fall in love when Eurydice hears Orpheus playing his lyre and is entranced by his music and, therefore, him. But both myths are epic love stories that have been told for centuries, and Anaïs Mitchell is just one of the latest people to tell them in a new way. These aren't fluffy rom-com romances - both couples go through their fair share of heartbreak. Hadestown borrows most of its story from two myths about couples: Orpheus and Eurydice, and Hades and Persephone. In Hadestown, the three fates are a chorus, and they influence many decisions the other characters make. One Fate is the "spinner" who creates each person's life/thread, one is the "allotter" who measures each thread to determine a person's lifespan, and one is the "cutter" who cuts a person's thread when their life is at its end. In mythology, the Fates look after a collection of strings, and each string represents someone's life. The trio's job is to ensure that everyone lives out the destiny the Fates assign them. The Fates: The three Fates are the Greek goddesses of (you guessed it) fate.He is the narrator of Hadestown and Orpheus's caretaker in the musical. He takes on a Grim Reaper-esque role in mythology, guiding souls to the afterlife. He is often depicted with winged shoes, representing his ability to deliver messages and move freely between the underworld and the world of the living. Hermes: Hermes is the messenger god, or the "herald of the gods," in Greek mythology.She oversees the underworld (Hadestown) in the musical as well, but she's not happy about it. Persephone: Persephone is the goddess of agriculture and vegetation and, after marrying Hades, becomes queen of the underworld by his side.In some Greek stories, the name "Hades" is synonymous with the underworld itself. Hades: The god of the underworld, in both mythology and the musical.In Hadestown, Eurydice is an impoverished, lonely young girl who goes to the underworld (Hadestown) willingly, though she doesn't quite know what she's getting into. She is killed by a snake shortly after marrying Orpheus and descends to the underworld. Eurydice: In classical mythology, a beautiful wood nymph.He remains a lyre player in Hadestown, but a contemporary, poor one. Orpheus is featured in multiple Greek myths, including Jason and the Argonauts' quest to find the magical Golden Fleece (Orpheus was an Argonaut) and that of his own quest to rescue his late wife, Eurydice, from the underworld. He inherited great musical skills from his parents - in Greek mythology, he can charm any living creature and even rocks with his music. Orpheus: A demigod, the son of Apollo, god of the sun and music, and the muse Kalliope.The rest have some sort of powers of their own too, like magnetic beauty and the ability to play enchanting music. Brush up on your mythology knowledge with our guide, and then get ready to see these classical characters in a whole new light.Ĭharacters from Greek mythology in in HadestownĮight main characters from Greek mythology are featured as lead roles in Hadestown. They're all essentially human in the play, but in the original myths, more than half are all-powerful gods and goddesses. If you slept through your Greek mythology lesson in high school, you might get as lost during the musical as Orpheus does on the way to Hadestown. Geographically and thematically, the original source material couldn't be more different from Hadestown, but the characters' narratives and personalities draw from ancient Greek literature. Mitchell's interpretation, with plenty of creative liberty, uses the myths to talk about greed and unethical labor, but also the enduring power of love. ![]() The basis remained intact: Two myths of troubled couples - Orpheus and Eurydice, and Hades and Persephone - are retold with jazz and folk music and placed in a contemporary industrial setting. Anaïs Mitchell first conceived Hadestown as a concept album based on classical Greek myths before turning the songs into a full-fledged musical.
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