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Artbound

Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch’s Accuser (Trailer)

The eponymous heroine Vireo, played by soprano Rowen Sabala, is a fourteen-year-old girl genius entangled in the historic obsession with female visionaries, as witch-hunters, early psychiatrists, and modern artists have defined them. Based on Lisa Bielawa’s own research at Yale, then freely adapted and re-imagined by librettist Erik Ehn, VIREO is a composite history of the way in which teenage-girl visionaries’ writings and rantings have been manipulated, incorporated and interpreted by the communities of men surrounding them throughout history. From the European Dark Ages, to Salem, Massachusetts, all the way to 19th century France and contemporary performance art, VIREO provides a thoughtful, sometimes-humorous look at the universal issues of gender identity, perception, and reality.