projects

Criptografia delle acque (Watery Cryptography)
after Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of drowned women and sirens
for female pianist, natural shore sounds and live electronics

Heather O’Donnell, performer
Olivier Pasquet, live electronics


The performance is conceived as taking place in the open air, near a lake or river, in the late afternoon. The piano should be positioned on the shore, with the audience seated facing it.

The project is based on a recurring theme in the works of Edgar Allan Poe: the drowning of beautiful young women and their subsequent reincarnation as sirens.  
The piece refers particularly to two of Poe’s late works: the short story called The Mystery of Marie Roget, a literary depiction of the murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers, whose body was found floating in the Hudson River on July 25, 1841, and the poem Annabel Lee, which recalls a premature death by drowning.
The pianist portrays this characteristically Poeian character - a water nymph, the dreamlike projection of the bereaved narrator - in a performance involving virtuoso pianism, vocalisation and movements: circling the piano, entering inside it and emerging from the water.
The societal and cultural legacy of the piano as a symbol of 19th-century feminine refinement and achievement is recalled and analysed: the piano, in its massiveness and solidity, is both a representation of the tomb of the drowned woman, and a shell from which the siren emerges.