On 24 March The Passion of Mary Magdalene, Tansy Davies’ radical reimagining of the Easter story, premieres at the Barbican with Dunedin Consort, directed by John Butt. The 85-minute piece, whose three parts play without a break, was commissioned by the Dunedin Consort, the Barbican Centre and the Edinburgh International Festival.
Bringing repressed voices into the light, Davies’ new oratorio draws on the non-canonical gospels, poetry by Ruth Fainlight, and ancient mystical texts to recast Mary Magdalene as a multifaceted spiritual leader. Soprano Anna Dennis will sing the role of Mary, with baritone Marcus Farnsworth as Jesus.
Tell us about the genesis of this project. What does Mary Magdalene mean to you?
The catalyst was the invitation to compose a Passion from Dunedin from the perspective of Mary Magdalene. I hadn’t been thinking about doing anything like that – but immediately I was very excited when this proposal came in.
Feeling my way back through time and thinking about the project, I realised it had been, for all sorts of reasons, something I had always been thinking about or working towards. (My first cat was named after Mary Magdalene). But when I think back to what kinds of visions I had, all along, when I was composing – it was always a wise woman in the desert, this kind of raw oracle. That idea has shaped a lot of my aesthetic – an earthiness, as well as a certain soulfulness, connected to a deep human time.
And, of course, she plays an enormously important role in traditional tellings of the Passion story – albeit in a more peripheral way. Is this something the Passion is trying to address?
Mary Magdalene is widely regarded as one of Jesus's most devoted and significant disciples, particularly noted for being the first witness to the resurrection and the one entrusted with announcing it to the other apostles, earning her the title "Apostle to the Apostles".
This designation, affirmed by Pope Francis in 2016 when he elevated her feast day to a higher rank, underscores her unique role and prominence among Jesus' followers. While the Gospels do not explicitly name her as the "favourite" disciple, her position as the first to see the risen Christ and her consistent presence at key moments—such as the crucifixion and the empty tomb— demonstrate a profound and intimate relationship with Jesus.
How did you go about creating your text for The Passion of Mary Magdalene?
My text for The Passion comes from various sources – there are elements of the traditional Gospels narratives, as well as the Book of Enoch, the ancient Jewish apocalyptic text. The work is structured around seven ‘climates’ - a reference to the non-canonical Gospel of Mary, an important Gnostic text, which was an important source for this piece. First discovered in Cairo in 1896 in a papyrus codex, it is a radical alternative interpretation of both the life of Mary and Jesus Christ and puts forward its own vision of the path to spiritual freedom. So too is it highly critical of church authority.
In its place the Gospel makes a powerful case for women’s leadership and identifies Mary as a significant spiritual figurehead and practitioner in her own right. In this respect, the Passion is about bringing hidden and repressed voices into the light – disturbing the traditional narratives around Mary as a character and her role in the events of a very familiar story.
The Passion is also connected with other resurrection stories which preceded that of Jesus. The myth of Isis and Osiris pre-echoes the story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene: when Osiris’ body was dismembered, his wife Isis reassembled the body, anointed it with oil and performed the elaborate rites of embalming, which resurrected Osiris to eternal life as the god of the underworld.
So, alongside some of the characters we would expect to see in this story – Pilate, his Wife, the Pharisees, Jesus – there are Oracles, Demons, a Possessed Boy, and Angels, represented by the nine singers.
The poetry of Ruth Fainlight (b.1931) also features in your text for The Passion. What does her writing bring to the story?
I have known Ruth for over 30 years and have wanted to set her work for nearly as long; in fact, I composed my piano concerto Nature whilst staying in her former home in Somerset.
Two of her epic Sibyl poems give to Mary Magdalene in the piece. Ruth’s poetry is full of powerful female presences – the Sibyl of Cumae is an especially important muse and creative alter-ego. Her writing about the Sibyl weaves together these Classical, and Biblical traditions and stories brilliantly, and explores femininity across the ages – in much the same way that The Passion connects Mary Magdalene with antecedent and contemporary ideas about spirituality and healing.
Her poems therefore seemed an apt way to focalise the story of Mary Magdalene, giving voice to her rise. For Ruth she is a dynamic figure without whom Jesus would be unable to do his work of healing. The sibyl's voice is linked to the unconscious, with Fainlight describing the creative process as "getting into the water”. Mary Magdalene is a figure who brings buried truths and secrets back to the light, and demands our attention – although she is not always heard.
Bach’s Passions are often thought of as highly theatrical works. How does The Passion of Mary Magdalene relate to your other scenic works – chamber opera Cave and Between Worlds – and does it draw on operatic and dramatic elements?
I think I’m a natural opera composer and most of what I do contains a narrative or theatrical drive, however abstract. I enjoy creating a musical structure around a pre-formed text or a dramatic structure; burrowing into it, weaving layers out of it and then playing around or dancing in dialogues between the layers and component parts. There are often multiple timelines playing out too, and I often jump between them, via triggers or portals built into the musical structure.
The Passion is an inherently dramatic work and I can absolutely imagine the work being staged. I think that for some listeners, the music alone will be enough, since there’s a lot of tension and energy already in there - it’s intense!
Though The Passion can be performed on modern instruments, it will be heard for the first time with historically-informed and period instrument sounds – gut strings, of course, but also recorders, bass lute, and harpsichord. These sonorities are quite different ones than we are used to hearing in your scores - what was your experience of writing for them like?
As a composer who likes to write music of multiple layers that interact in a complex, dynamic way, the sound of a group like Dunedin appealed to me greatly – instruments like the lute, harpsichord, as well as the ensemble’s gut strings, are less resonant than their modern counterparts, and allow for a great deal of transparency and dynamism, letting the counterpoint in the score shine.
The way of working that early music groups like Dunedin have also attracted me – I think of the ensemble as almost like a funk band, with an improvisatory and experimental approach to discovering sonorities and textures, with a flatter hierarchy and intensely collaborative approach. In this respect they are a perfect fit for a piece dedicated to a figure who challenged authority.
But speaking of pop and funk, and the ensemble has come contemporary colours too from the presence of the electric guitar. That music is sometimes nested in the continuo section – bringing a bright and very modern edge to its sound – and elsewhere takes on a more extroverted, virtuosic character, breaking out of the ensemble. It brings brighter, brassier sounds to the group (which features no horns or trumpets) but also is partly a gleaming musical avatar for Mary herself – it speaks for her fiery, defiant soul.
What can we learn from Mary Magdalene’s story? What can she inspire in audiences today?
Mary Magdalene is a spiritual conduit for millions today. She is often connected to water as an aspect of Divine Feminine energy; of going within, of surrendering and opening to inner wisdom and the womb-like darkness of the internal world, in search of self-mastery. She is a figure associated with the cleansing of demons and renewal. The work begins with Jesus’ anger at the world, and at humanity, for their unkindness to each other. He says: “you just watch – a woman is going to rise up and speak her truth. She’s come from the ends of the earth to help us all.” Today, she represents the hope of a transformed world and different way of living.