On April 15th, 2023, the Campus Artist and Lectures Series (CALS) took a group SUNY Cortland students to Manhattan to see the musical Hadestown on Broadway. Hadestown is a story combines two of the most famous Greek lovers, Hades and Persephone, with the tale of young lovers Eurydice and Orpheus.
A young man, Orpheus, is working on a song to bring spring back to a poverty stricken town stuck in a strew of cold winter months. He meets a young woman named Eurydice and quickly falls in love with her. As it gets colder, Orpheus works hard to finish his song but in the midst of concentration ignores Eurydice’s cries for help when she expresses concerns for shelter and food.
Hades during a big fight with his wife, Persephone, decides he will find someone else who will appreciate his efforts if his wife will not. Eurydice desperate, starving, and homeless takes Hades offer when he tells her he can give her all the things Orpheus is not. Orpheus realizes the love of his life is gone too late and now must travel to the underworld in an attempt to bring her back.
Hadestown was quite literally a surreal experience. The vocals were just insane, the effects, lighting, and instrumentation were out of this world. I loved the fact that the band was on stage throughout the whole show.
The set, though smaller than you would think a Broadway stage would be, had amazing special effects. The floor was made up of three different sized circles, one side of the other, with the smallest one being at the center. The center circle would descend into the ground giving the impression of taking characters into the underworld. All the circles could not only just spin but spin in different directions and at different speeds.
One of my favorite parts of the show was watching the scenes when the circles are spinning in opposite directions giving the effect of the characters running to, but never quite reaching, each other.
I was in pure awe of the vocal talent in this show. The vocalists surprised me in a good way because it seemed to be Orpheus has the highest vocal part in the show. Usually, the woman lead is clearly the highest vocal part but in this show the male lead stuck out singing all the way up to around a C5.
The show was built on amazing contralto-alto, mezzo-alto, and alto voices which is uncommon to find for most musicals. The lower vocal build gave me a more serious and powerful impression which is exactly what content matter like the gist of Hadestown needs.
Overall, Hadestown is one of the best shows on Broadway and definitely and experience all musical lovers would enjoy.