Programme Note In 1983, Theatre Newfoundland Labrador produced Euripides' Bacchae in a version as close as possible to the original Greek staging, including using an all-male cast. The company commissioned me to write the music for the six choruses of the play plus some incidental music. The devised the music for the six choruses that that it incorporated the complex rhythms of the original Greek text. I then had to translate the choruses and find English words to fit these complex rhythms. The result is that the score can be performed using either the Greek or English text. The music follows the psychological development of the six choruses as the actors progress from exstatic joy as followers of Dionysos to frenzy-driven fanatics. So successful was the music for this production that it was used as incidental music for two other productions by Theatre Newfoundland Labrador: Sophocles' Antigone and Oedipus the King.

The climactic moment in the Bacchae of Euripides: as the chorus looks on, Agave (Maxim Mazumdar) brings on stage the head of her son Pentheus whom she has torn limb from limb in a fit of madness caused by Dionysos. Theatre Newfoundland Labrador production, 1983.

The final scene of the Bacchae. Agave (Maxim Mazumdar) comforts her father Cadmus (John Ralston) as they both try to deal with the entire destruction of their family at the hands of Dionysos.