The great playwright William Shakespeare once said,
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.â€
Each of us inhabits many different characters over the course of a lifetime, weaving a delicate web of stories and half-told truths, treading a precarious path somewhere between the real and the imagined. Ophelia of the Spirits is a singer, composer & pianist who is about to step into the warm glow of the footlights with the release of her debut EP in 2008. A collaboration with Icelandic producer and arranger Geir Brillian, the record is made up of six songs, each of which tells its own self-contained story while also serving as part of an overarching narrative which explores the cyclical nature of life, and the struggle to find beauty in a world full of suffering.
A chameleon of sorts, Ophelia of the Spirits’ name derives from a marriage of characters from the works of Shakespeare and Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini. In the Shakespearian tragedy Hamlet, Lady Ophelia, Hamlet’s love, falls to her death from the branches of a weeping willow tree. She is found drowned in the river below, surrounded by flowers she had been weaving into garlands before she fell. It is never known whether her death was an accident or suicide. Fellini’s 1965 film ‘Giulietta degli Spiriti’ (Juliet of the Spirits) tells the story of a woman trapped in a loveless marriage who begins a process of spiritual awakening, experiencing unsettling surrealist visions; a reborn Alice in Wonderland following her subconscious further and further down the rabbit hole.
Her fascination with the traditional music of the Celts, India and the Middle East has led Ophelia of the Spirits to create her own kind of musical aesthetic which defies the boundaries of genre and form. Influenced as much by folk melodies as by French Impressionists like Eric Satie, or by the weighty ambience of artists like Led Zeppelin and Massive Attack, Ophelia of the Spirits is constantly striving to transcend the perceived barriers between genres, and indeed between different artforms themselves. Her spiritual connection with her music is also inextricably linked with her Buddhist philosophy and practice, and her ultimate desire to help people transform their suffering into a deep well of strength and hope.
Ophelia’s alter-ego is a budding film & theatre composer who has just completed her Masters degree at the renowned Australian Film Television & Radio School (AFTRS). After completing her studies, she spent some time delving into theatre in early 2008, assisting award-winning composer Basil Hogios on Bell Shakespeare’s production of ‘As You Like It.’ Bell Shakespeare is Australia’s premier Shakespeare touring company.
Over the coming months, Ophelia will be performing and touring her EP, working on various film projects, and recording more of her songs to create a full-length album by the end of 2008.
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