"This is an expanded version of my first-ever libretto, created within the Tapestry LIBLAB. I knew right away that I wanted to tailor each piece to its composer, to find forms and content that would excite them. Asked to adapt a scene from Sophocles’ Antigone (which is one of my very favourite stories), I was partnered with the electronic composer and committed leftist David Ogborn. My first words to him were: “I’m thinking Guantanamo Bay.” His first words to me were: “I love it.” I was inspired by real-life accounts of the second Gulf War, such as one from Bagram Air Base of an interpreter who rebelled against having to interpret during sessions of “enhanced interrogation” of suspected terrorists… which was Dick Cheney’s euphemism for torture. I wanted to focus on the conflict between duty and humanity that was so frequent in that morally bankrupt environment. I wanted to bring in the voice of the people, as the Greeks always did. Also, I am a theatrical translator, and translation in itself always brings in questions of one’s ultimate loyalty. In fact, we have a saying in the profession: “Traduttore, traditore”, to translate is to betray…"

- Leanna Brodie