Four Larks’ Katabasis: Imagining Ancient Mystery Rites as Promenade Opera in Los Angeles

Abstract

Los Angeles-based transdisciplinary collaborative Four Larks created an immersive opera at the Getty Villa antiquities museum in tandem with the exhibition “Underworld: Imagining the Afterlife.” The artists used the exhibited artifacts as source material for the text, design, musical score and choreography. The performance mapped the ancient underworld across the grounds and gardens of the museum, a facsimile of the Villa dei Papyri incongruously perched on the Californian coast. Audiences were led through a series of installations, featuring expansive costumes, large-scale puppets and masks, and custom-made musical instruments activated by performers. The peripatetic performance sought a contemporary analogue to ancient Greek religious rites in which participants would embody a ritualized death and journey through the afterlife.

This essay was adapted from a talk given at the Performing Space ‘24 conference which included videos and images from the performance, by the production’s writer, director, and composer Matthew Diafos Sweeney, and designer and choreographer Sebastian Peters-Lazaro.