For years, I had imagined setting that most ancient of Greek myths, operatically. The very earliest Western operas, created in Florence, Italy at the beginning of the seventeenth-century, sought to recreate Classical Greek drama, and therefore used Greek and Roman mythology as subject matter almost exclusively for decades. I found myself at the end of a long and venerable tradition of myth as opera, so why isn’t this piece just called “Pandora’s Box”? Why isn’t the stage littered with marble columns, a chorus of toga’d singers waiting in the wings? Greek myth is essentially shorthand for the human experience – an experience, which, when you get down to the nitty-gritty, really hasn’t changed that much over thousands or millions of years. We all want to know where we came from. We all want to know where we are going. We all want to feel like we belong where we are. Pandora 2008 AD is not so different from Pandora 2008 BC. That’s certainly not to say that myths are the unquestionable shorthand of the human experience. Pandora 2008 BC’s world certainly had a different view towards women and there is no denying that this myth is a condemnation of “female curiosity” and “lack of willpower.” In fact, the story goes so far as to blame all the evils of the world on Pandora’s weakness. Women have suffered, sometimes horribly, under these stereotypes for centuries, and I strongly felt the need to air out this androcentric tale and cast Pandora in her true light: the caretaker of her own fate. Myths can teach us a lot. They answer many questions, but no answer is sacred. Ask every question. Question every answer. Pandora is who Pandora wants to be.

- Dean Burry, Composer, from CMC Composer Showcase