Sappho's Daughter is a collaboration in two parts. The original text by poet Theo Dorgan will be spoken by actors Barry McGovern and Olwen Fouéré, to music commissioned from the Irish composer Colm Mac Con Iomaire, while the translation into Greek by Socrates Kabouropoulos will be set to music by Cretan guitarist Dimitris Koukoulitakis.

Sappho, most renowned of poets, had a daughter, Cleis, but nobody knows who her father was. Dorgan’s long poem gives a voice to both poet and mysterious father, summoning both spirits from the underworld to tell their story. Redolent of the sea, of the rich Greek earth and air, the poem stands somehow out of time - an element in a long conversation between Ireland and Greece, deepened and amplified by the music of these ancient and ever-renewing cultures

Further information

www.theodorgan.com

Photograph: Musei Capitolini