Diamanda Galas
Plague Mass

In 1989, the Trilogy of the Mask of the Red Death (Masque of the Red Death) was released, a double album that collects her last three albums
(Divine Punishment - 1986 / Saint of The Pit - 1986 / You Must Be Certain of The Devil - 1988). A common factor in the three albums is the more or less implicit references to the homonymous work of Edgar Allan Poe, a great point of reference for Galas. At the same time, the lady takes on tour a show inspired by the Trilogy, Plague Mass (End of The Epidemic), reinterpreting published material and presenting a further continuation, both conceptual and concrete.

In August 1990, the Vatican and the Italian press describe Plague Mass as blasphemous and obscene, pointing fingers at "Sono L'Antichristo" and "Confessional"

(...)
And on his dying bed the dirty angels flying over him like buzzards asked him
Do you confess?
Do you confess?
(...)
Yes, I confess
GIVE ME SODOMY OR GIVE ME DEATH!

But after being arrested at St. Patrick's Cathedral (New York) for interrupting a ceremony of a certain cardinal, publicly accusing him, she will only return to a church in the Big Apple to perform the Plague Mass, her personal lament for all the victims of the new epidemic: AIDS. On October 12 and 13, she performs in the church of St. John the Divine, adhering to the parameters of the show already on tour for a year. The promoters look at her terrified (as they knew very well what was about to happen), and uptown NY, which had come just to criticize, remains glued to their seats. Diamanda, as usual, presents herself naked from the waist up, dyed in blood, illuminated by a faint crimson light, accompanied by few musicians on percussion, tapes, and keyboards. Her grand piano is always present, as much as she uses it little to none.

This is the Law of the Plague: to teach when it's clean and when it's unclean

Even without listening to the album, you could imagine the endless controversy that later ensued. She was accused of satanism, the Holy See responded with charges of sacrilege, and then the tabloids and so forth. Even more annoyed by her promoters' hypocrisy, Diamanda candidly declares "The promoters were afraid of presenting me in church because my work is perceived as Satanic, which it is. But at the same time, my work is profoundly liturgical and religious." Her own words, in the "moral" defense of her work, have a remarkable sarcastic tone. To say she was simply pissed off at the world because in 1986 her brother Philip Dimitri (a brilliant director and playwright) died of AIDS is to mystify the intent of a work of much greater scope than a simple outburst. The use of Leviticus (the book that sanctioned the laws observed in the tribe of Levi) should not be seen as functional to a -satanic or not- celebration but as a piece for a concept of enormous scope, which probably neither those occupying the VIP seats that day in 1990 nor the various Ruffini and Ratzinger will ever be able to understand.

If the God of the Old Testament is used as justification for any purpose, this God now evoked by Galas represents more the globalized society of today than anything else, while the Antichrist in which she "reincarnates" herself is more plausibly a parody of her uncomfortable role as a "political" artist. What better way does man have to defeat the enemy if not by demonizing it? Totally marginalizing it? Denying its existence?
Just as those in power have always tended to behave in this way, this is the process that the media apply to those who do not conform, to those who are at the forefront for the rights and protection of women, HIV positive, homosexuals, ethnic minorities, marginalized by society. The hungry of the third world, the Turkish genocide, the AIDS patients forgotten in hospitals, those who try to rebel and are annihilated by the police.

This album is a punch in the mouth for those right-wingers who cover themselves with Christian values without ever having understood them, wearing them like a Dolce and Gabbana dress and then shining at a gala of mediocre personalities. And there are those who do not believe that art and politics can still go hand in hand. Why? The term politics, analyzing the Greek semantic root, means "ethics of the polis" and at least in the era of Pericles, every artistic manifestation had something to transmit to its users, albeit in an absolutely simple way. But more often than not, "artists" with a flat electroencephalogram are also content with "sole cuore amore" just to have guaranteed airplay by various international MTVs and make some money. They will be destined to fatten the banks' accounts, okay, but will they stay alive in our minds for what they gave us? What they transmitted to us? For what has indelibly changed our existence? In a society that counts more on having than being, words like those of Galas risk flying like leaves in the wind, but the pain and anger, coming from the mind of this brilliant woman, do justice to all those people in the world who have no say. Definitively a masterpiece of modern art: musically and otherwise.