Michalis Grigoriou and the “Dark Act” oratorio, part 2
“I know of course that nowadays “oratorios” that last for one and a half hours are no longer written because the collective symbols that could support them have been lost, and also because the pace of life has accelerated and the limits of perceptive attention and tolerance of the listener have decreased. So, the work I wrote in 1993 could be considered since then as something outdated and unearthly. I didn’t mind back then and I still don’t mind. Today, when petty-bourgeois mentality and apathy are spreading rapidly together with fascism and barbarism, when art is increasingly becoming a material for investing free time and loses its ability to mobilize and move, when every emotion and every echo is lost, and with them also the ability to resist cynicism and stupidity, maybe unearthliness is the only attitude that can offer a sense of security and peace, elementary dignity but also hope for the future. After all, this has always been and still is my job: to serve unearthliness”. Michalis Grigoriou