Hadestown - A Reflection
In 2021, on a long drive home, I came across a mysterious song from a musical called Hadestown. This musical, which opened on broadway in 2019, examines the love and suffering experienced in modern day life through the characters of ancient Greek mythology. The soundtrack utilizes energetic jazz music and haunting mellow vocals to tell the story of Orpheus and Eurydice’s doomed romance.
The songs “Road to Hell”, “Any Way the Wind Blows” and “Epic 1” introduce the crucial characters. Eurydice was “a run away from everywhere she’d ever been”. Orpheus “ had a way with words and was touched by the gods themselves”. The two meet at a bar and Orpheus falls instantly in love. He seeks to woo Eurydice who playfully rejects his advances until she hears that Orpheus can grant what she has never found - a chance to feel alive. She further discovers that Orpheus is writing a song with the power to rebalance an out of balance world. These pieces reflect on the power of young, innocent love and set the stage for upcoming heartbreak.
Tragedy arrives quickly in the young couple’s relationship. Eurydice tells Orpheus that they are running out of food and firewood in “A Gathering Storm” but he is distracted by his mission to right the world with his song and he walks away. Eurydice accepts an invitation to have an affair with the god of the underworld when the god offers her food, warmth, and security. She makes an agreement to stay endlessly in Hades’ underworld and is bound to be eternally separated from Orpheus (“Way Down Hadestown”). The universally known suffering of forbidden love is played out as the play’s protagonists long for each other and seek to be reunited.
In “Wait for Me” (two consecutive songs by the same name) Orpheus prepares to enter the underworld with hopes to rescue Eurydice and continue their love in the land of the living. Hermes shares the secret of the “long way round” to Hadestown and Orpheus claims he would go “to the end of time, to the end of the Earth” to regain his bride. Orpheus completes the perilous journey but even greater danger is present as he faces Hades himself and the damning contract holding Eurydice captive. In a final exploration of suffering, Orpheus fails to rescue Eurydice and they are forced to spend the rest of their lives apart.
The whole soundtrack of the musical is a progressive exploration of love and suffering. The final perspective is that suffering wins out - again and again. The only hope allowed is sung by the narrator as he explains that the song is sung despite its tragic ending “as if it might turn out this time”. Maybe the hope that the story will end with joy is part of what draws me to this musical. I find myself listening to it endlessly.
