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Journey to Benares

a rock opera

Libretto, lyrics, and backdrops
by Melinda Camber Porter

Music, direction, and choreography
by Elizabeth Swados

The Ravages of War

Journey to Benares was born from the daring collaboration between award-winning director/composer Elizabeth Swados and British artist/author /filmmaker Melinda Camber Porter. Ms. Swados was overcome by Ms. Porter’s bold paintings in the Triptych Series and inspired by Ms. Porter’s libretto and lyrics to develop the choreography and music for Journey to Benares. A workshop followed at Asia Society and Museum in New York City, the foremost cultural institution dedicated to fostering understanding between Asians and Americans.

The rock opera Journey to Benares thrusts the audience into a new world of spiritual sensuality where paintings become live choreography and where the Spirit and Body are One. This transition into a new era is told through the harrowing spiritual journey of Lavinia, whose S & M, game-filled affair with Benjy becomes the unlikely catalyst for a pilgrimage to the most spiritual of cities, Benares, where flaming funeral pyres continuously light up the night sky, and where the cool, sacred waters of the Ganges give salvation to all pilgrims. This is the city of the god Shiva and his lover, Parvati, who together hold the secrets of the Tantric Body and who merge endlessly in exquisite acts of love.

Lavinia ends up in Benares to escape a dead end, but passionately addictive affair with her manic, self-obsessed lover, Benjy, an intensely driven New York producer. Despite his addictive attraction to Lavinia, it is actually Benjy who packs her off to visit his Guru “to gain spiritual insight” but, in reality, he’s desperate to protect her from his own violence that is starting to seep through their baroque sexual games.

Once Lavinia arrives in Benares, the gods (unlike the mortals) are able to see her for who she is: they are moved by her earthy spirituality and her obstinately compassionate nature. They are fascinated by her outpourings of empathy for India and her earnest wish to help humanity, in the midst of her own pain.

Shiva, in particular, the god of sudden change who makes cataclysmic eruptions of lightning storms and forest fires and who presides over the reincarnation of the dying, takes a sudden interest in Lavinia’s love story and the landscape of her raw heart. For awhile now, Shiva and most of the gods have begun to distance themselves from the world of mortals, irritated by their wars and ingratitude and deep incapacity to love. Ganga takes a particular liking to Lavinia because she has lost everything only because she loved too long and too deeply.

With the gods watching, Lavinia embarks on an amazing spiritual journey made up of raunchy comic encounters and heart-wrenching calamities.

Eventually, after Lavinia has suffered every kind of human betrayal and has lost all that she depended on, the gods eventually permit her to witness an awe-inspiring Tantric dance performed by Shiva himself and his lover, Parvati. This long-withheld sacred and essential Tantric secret is given to Lavinia as a gift from the gods. But they give it to her so she can pass it on . . . so that the landscape of her heart will be a microcosm of what the world could become.

And since All’s Well That Ends Well, Benjy of course follows Lavinia to Benares, unbeknownst to her, and he ends up (well, who wouldn’t?) falling in love with her . . . all over again.

About the Paintings:
The oils on canvas from the Triptych Series by Melinda Camber Porter were one of the main inspirations for Ms. Swados’s music and choreography. Eight paintings from the Triptych Series are presented on stage.

Shiva and Parvati in the Forest

This painting, “Shiva and Parvati in the Forest,” shows one of the stages of the Tantric Ritual where the gods Shiva and Parvati merge into one being. The rock opera culminates in this amazing Tantric Ritual, which is spiritual, and sensual. In Journey to Benares, the Ritual follows the traditional pattern where the partners bless and worship each other and evoke the divine sacred aspect of each other. The streets of Benares are actually crammed full with symbolic “lingas” which represent the abstract shape of this Tantric merging of the male and female divinities into one being.

Guardian of Lovers

The first time Melinda met Elizabeth in her painting studio, she showed her many of the paintings of the Triptych Series to explain the narrative. Elizabeth got it immediately and loved the idea of a woman character going through stages of a spiritual journey. In this painting you can see the transformation of Lavinia in the Ganges’ sacred waters. Shiva watches over the transformation.

Breath to Breath, Skin to Skin, Gift of Courage

At the Asia Society and Museum workshop, Elizabeth Swados arranged the paintings in a “maze formation” so the actors were living inside the “maze.” Elizabeth would steep herself in the colors and textures of the paintings and then go off and create her great music and choreography. This painting shows the fluid movement of the Ganges that links all beings and all events. The myriad characters and happenings in the painting are all gathered up in a brush stroke that is circular and female and compassionate like the Mother of Rivers, Ganga.

The Works of Melinda Camber Porter