Aphrodite punishes the celibate prince Hippolytus, a devout worshipper of Artemis, bringing about his death through the very sex that he has scorned, by casting a spell on Queen Phaedra to fall in love with him, her stepson.

The nurse, nameless but all pervasive, learns her secret and brings it to Hippolytus, who reacts with savage misogynistic ferocity.

Eu vos liberto was performed in a derelict building, an ‘abandoned palace’. The entrance’s décor insinuates a brothel, the colossal main space, its dilapidated sofas and armchairs covered in dust sheets, a long-forgotten opulence. Reflective pools of dark water forge a gulf between the cast and the audience, fleetingly creating mirror images as the tragedy unfolds.

High above the stage, suspended on a bridge, a counter-tenor, whose sublime voice expands through the palace, revealing the character’s secrets and their inescapable fate.

In the final act, dismembered and broken, Hippolytus returns for a final encounter with his father, King Theseus. In a moment of sudden reversal, Hippolytus forgives his father, his executioner: “I am your son and hers. I set you free.”

The roles of Theseus and Hippolytus are enacted by the same actor – in this production, the figure of the brutal, debauched Theseus is the inner antagonist, lurking in Hippolytus’ tormented, schizoid psyche.

Featuring an international cast of dancers and actors, Eu vos liberto premiered in one of Belo Horizonte’s oldest remaining buildings, a deserted 1906 textile factory in today’s red-light district. The lighting design was devised by Brazil’s renowned lighting designer Guilherme Bonfanti.

The soundscape was created by The Hafler Trio using the cast’s sounds and voices, to which Rodrigo Firpi composed a classical musical score with Euripides’ play as blueprint for the libretto. Suspended high above the ‘islands’, Firpi performed live, his ‘castrato’ voice eerily travelling around the old factory. Eu vos liberto revived the derelict building which subsequently became a cultural centre, 104 Tecidos.

Cast of four
80 minutes
5.1 surround sound

Aphrodite, some have called me:
in each of you your reaching, out
toward an other, in Desire. All you
Well know my deep compulsion
in your flesh. I am as necessary in you each, as
any moral aspect of a man.

Look everywhere, end to end of this earth:
I tell you, yield me my due celebration,
I enhance you; rank me some baser nature
you would rise above, I bring you falling.

Hippolytus (Euripides), a version by David Rudkin