Diarmuid agus Gráinne

Mise Gráinne

The early Irish saga of Diarmuid and Gráinne has been compared to the story of Tristan and Isolde for its portrayal of the lethal consequences of a doomed love affair. It is much more than that, more troubling and more human in its representation of the tension between duty and desire, between love and loyalty, men and women, the bedroom and the battlefield. ‘They knew about death, the Old Masters’, according to WH Auden. So too, the early Irish poets and storytellers who understood the dark complexities of the human heart, who continue to speak to us from beyond the grave and a thousand years of history. 

At the heart of the story is the figure of Gráinne, whose uncompromising love leads to death and destruction for those closest to her. Betrothed to Fionn, a decent and respected older man loved by friends, family and followers, and still grieving for his dead wife, she elopes with his young comrade Diarmuid the night before her wedding. While the two men are tormented by conflicting feelings of loyalty and betrayal, Gráinne never wavers as she confronts the consequences of her actions without remorse or regret. A powerful and dangerous woman, her fierce integrity and absolute desire are both frightening and compelling, making her strangely sympathetic as she remembers, reluctantly, the devastating effect of her fatal attraction.

Mise Gráinne/I am Gráinne is a chamber opera, combining music, songs, and spoken word, video projection and choreographed movement. Gráinne will be onstage throughout in a very bare set – a rudimentary bedroom with a single bed and minimal furnishings that might be a hospital, a prison, an old folks’ home, a refugee centre, an old lady’s bedroom anywhere and nowhere. She remembers reluctantly the events of decades before, beginning with fragments, voices, and images she tries to suppress before surrendering to the memory of the defining story of her life. 

Gráinne’s story offers an opportunity to explore the contradictions of the human heart as it struggles to reconcile friendship and betrayal, the need for forgiveness and the desire for revenge. The old Irish saga tells us no one is completely innocent, no one so culpable as to be beyond our sympathy and understanding. 

The estimated running time is 75 minutes without an interval moving quickly through shifting patterns, moods and tones that reflect the accelerating drama of the story as it moves towards its violent climax. To the extent that universal human emotions are at the heart of the drama, it could be set anywhere and at any time.