Review: ‘Gilgamesh: The Opera’ brings ancient epic to life at Cerritos Center
- Anita W. Harris
- 4 hours ago
- 6 min read
“Four thousand years ago, someone pressed a reed into clay to preserve this story. Tonight, we sing it forward.” — Diana Farrell, librettist and artistic director
The 4,000-year-old epic tale of Gilgamesh was brought to life last weekend in the form of a lush opera five years in the making. With culturally inflected orchestral music, a rich libretto in English and Akkadian, and an astounding cast of vocalists and dancers, “Gilgamesh: The Opera” mesmerized and moved in its world premiere at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.
Artfully produced by the Assyrian Arts Institute, along with Lyric Opera of Orange County and transcultural music ensemble Bridge to Everywhere, the opera stays true to what we know of the ancient story while making palpable its timeless humanity.
“The Epic of Gilgamesh,” as it known to us, survived on 12 ancient cuneiform clay tablets excavated amidst thousands of fragments by British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard and his assistant Hormuzd Rassam in 1853 from the ruined library of Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in Nineveh (now northern Iraq, near Mosul). To the amazement of British translator George Smith two decades later, the pre-biblical tale recounts a great flood that destroyed all people except those saved aboard an ark.
“As Assyrians, this story is part of our ancestral inheritance. Yet tonight, it belongs to the world." — Nora Betyousef Lacey, executive producer
The story itself — centered on the hero’s journey of semi-divine Gilgamesh (“two-thirds god, one-third man”) — is pieced together from those surviving tablets and may yet be incomplete. In a nod to its origins, the opera’s staging includes large, floating tablet fragments, and projections (designed by Greg Mitchel) of cuneiform writing and relief carvings of deities and bearded kings, all evoking the ancientness of the tale.
A pantheon of Assyrian gods also figures prominently in the opera, including Ninsun (astonishing mezzosoprano Shannon Delijani), the mother of Gilgamesh, and Ishtar (soprano Anne Elise Teeling), goddess of love and war — all beautifully costumed by Joy Omiesh — as they observe Gilgamesh’s behavior from an upper level of the stage (set designed by Kristin Serena, built by Matthew Svoboda).
Composer Derrick Skye’s music is richly layered, emotionally evocative and varied, featuring violins, cellos, horns, percussion, harp and traditional South Asian and Middle Eastern string and pipe instruments the tamboura, nay and qanun, all expertly conducted by María Fátima Corona del Toro.
“The score also encodes microtonality, quarter-tones tuned to specific pitches drawn from my own deep engagement with this ancient maqam tradition, and conveyed to performers through an audio tuning guide.” — Derrick Skye, composer
Director Diana Farrell’s libretto is equally evocative, engaging, and immersive, telling Gilgamesh’s story from its human heart and making judicious choices about which parts to shorten, which to change slightly and which to delve into more deeply through song. Mostly in English, some lines are in the tale’s original preserved language of Akkadian, translated through supertitles.
Harmonic and haunting vocals by the entire cast of operatic singers infuse the production, beginning with a prologue (from another Mesopotamian epic also discovered by Layard, according to dramaturg Dr. Eve Sada) about the deities originating from a mix of sweet and salty waters, embodied here by the ethereally beautiful god Apsu (Amine Hachem) and goddess Tiamat (Melanie Ashkar), dressed in blue-green and singing in Akkadian.
“The performance builds on Assyrian musical and ritual practices preserved across generations, including the chant style, folk music, and communal circle dances (khagga). These ancient sounds carry us back in time, offering a living connection to the culture of Mesopotamia.” — Dr. Eve Sada, dramaturg and ethnomusicologist
The story is set in the city of Uruk (in what is now southern Iraq), where young King Gilgamesh (agile dancer Ahmad Joudeh) uses his unearthly strength to terrorize and enslave his subjects (an ensemble talented dancers, choreographed by Stephen Martin Allan), bedding brides and forcing men to work, much to the chagrin of the gods.
Ishtar decides to check Gilgamesh’s ruthlessness by creating Enkidu (spry dancer Vitor Luiz) from clay — a wild, primitive, horned man sexually acculturated by Ishtar’s temple “harlot” Shamhat (sinuous dancer Ashtar Ashurseen).
Enkidu proves to be a physically equal match for the king in a wrestling dance after he confronts Gilgamesh’s brutish behavior during a lovingly rendered village wedding. Impressed and enamored, Gilgamesh adopts Enkidu as his brother and they become inseparable, Gilgamesh’s behavior now calmed to benevolence.
After a mission to get cedar for Uruk by slaying cedarwood monster Humbaba (Michael O’Halloran, in Gabrielle McMillan's formidable articulated puppetry), Gilgamesh spurns Ishtar’s amorous advances, who then scornfully pleads with her father Anu (Eric Cornwell) to unleash the destructive “Bull of Heaven.”
Enkidu is killed in the ensuing battle, becoming absorbed into underworld realm Ersatim, ruled by goddess Ereshkigal (Joanna Lynn Jacobs) and evoked by slithering, grasping dancers — leaving Gilgamesh beyond devastated.
In the second act, an older but still distraught Gilgamesh (an excellent Laurence Varda, who also reflectively narrates from the start) begins a quest for immortality by seeking his ancestor Utnapishtim (O’Halloran), who'd saved humanity from a great flood generations earlier and whom the gods made immortal as a reward.
This more introspective second act is less dynamic than the first, featuring more projections than movement in portraying Gilgamesh’s obstacles, but sustained by Varda’s compelling performance. It also features a movingly sweet song of longing between sun-god Shamash (tenor Jacob Stucki) and blue-toned moon-god Sîn (countertenor Christian Abbo), as Gilgamesh follows the sun’s path through great mountains.
“In our telling, the gods are not distant cosmic puppeteers. They are manifestations of Gilgamesh’s inner life; his ambition, fear, grief, and shame, externalizing the tension between control and compassion.” — Diana Farrell, librettist and artistic director
Along the way, goddess of ale Shiduri (soprano Christine Oh) attempts to dissuade Gilgamesh from chasing eternal life and instead enjoy living in human time. Undeterred, he ultimately finds his ancestor across the Waters of Death, where Utnapishtim warns him of the responsibility of immortality but gives him a glowing green weed that will grant his wish.
When the plant is taken from him by Ishtar’s handmaidens, Gilgamesh returns to Uruk heavyhearted but receives a beloved hero’s welcome, the gods promising that his name will be eternally remembered for his good deeds. Dying of old age, Gilgamesh is reunited in spirit with brother Enkidu and mother Ninsun in a deeply moving final scene.
The timing and creative artistry of “Gilgamesh: The Opera” — a true Assyrian cultural touchstone — could not be more apt as war currently rages through the area of the story’s origin, as it has so often over millennia. One can only wish for all leaders to learn Gilgamesh’s eternal lesson that a soul’s immortality comes from serving benevolently rather than taking destructively.
“In an age obsessed with permanence—digital, political, personal—the epic reminds us that legacy is not measured by control, but by contribution. Not by how long we last, but by how deeply we love, how courageously we create, and how faithfully we remember.” — Diana Farrell, librettist and artistic director
“Gilgamesh: The Opera” performed March 28 and 29 at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 18000 Park Plaza Dr., Cerritos, California. Run time is 2 hours and 30 minutes, including intermission. For more information, visit Assyrianartsinstitute.org.
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