Andrómeda in chains

“Libérame tú del monstruo
del gris hostil que desuela las horas
rompe mansamente los grilletes
pues soy Andrómeda Encadenada.
La que habita en el foso de sí misma”.

Andrómeda encadenada
Fátima Frutos

Andrómeda encadenada (Andromeda in chains) is the new opera by the composer Agustí Charles. With staging by Jordi Pérez Solé and starring the singer María Hinojosa, it is a small-format piece, a monodrama for soprano, with amplified violin, harp, percussion, and live electronics (with the incorporation of the ePad-Wood, a new electronic percussion instrument created by the composer himself). 

Andrómeda Encadenada is based on the poem of the same name by the Basque writer Fátima Frutos, in which the author takes the old myth of the woman chained to the rocks and saved by Perseus and gives it a personal, contemporary, and, above all, feminist reading. The libretto, by Marc Rosich, turns the poet’s verses into dramatic material, transforming them into a sung monologue that also includes other texts taken from various poems by the author, as well as quotations from classical poets, such as Lope or Calderón, dedicated to the mythological character.  The resulting piece presents us with a woman in crisis after a breakup, but who, while taking refuge in the reading of the classics, and especially in the reinterpretation of the myth of Andromeda, ends up finding a way to break the bonds of sentimental dependence and thus reach self-affirmation as an autonomous being. The staging of Jordi Pérez Solé underlines the shattered world of the protagonist, from which she embarks on her journey, coming to learn to free herself from the chains that do not let her be herself.