Hadestown
A song we’re gonna sing again and again
Context
Since its opening in 2019, Hadestown has become one of the major modern Broadway hits. This show, written by Anaïs Mitchell, reimagines the story of Orpheus and Eurydice in a post-apocalyptic world inspired by the Great Depression and New Orleans jazz era. It also features major elements of Hades and Persephone’s story. These are two of the most famous myths in Greek Mythology. In fact, Hades and Persephone’s story helped explain the passing of the seasons. Flowers bloomed, and good weather came to Earth during the six months that Persephone spent in the human world. But the other half of the year, she had to return to her husband Hades, bringing cold and drought in the land. This August, a special pro-shot of the show was released in cinemas, featuring the original Broadway cast, and has become the highest-grossing live capture, surpassing Hamilton.
Before the show
I saw Hadestown in 2019, right after it won the Tony for Best Musical. I then repeated it in 2025 during my semester abroad, when I found a great deal on tickets. In fact, it was the TodayTix Spring Sale, which I found funny as the show celebrates the coming of spring. I remember that even on the day of the show, it was very sunny in New York, and the carnations that decorated the Walter Kerr Theatre were blooming in full red.
What is “Hadestown”?
The god Hermes tells us the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, now set during the Great Depression, where Orpheus works in a tavern next to the railroad. Eurydice is a young girl trying to escape hunger and misery. She falls in love with Orpheus when she sees how his music can make the flowers bloom. Orpheus writes a song about the story between Hades and Persephone, which sets the pace of passing seasons. When Persephone is on Earth, spring comes. But the other half of the year, she has to be in the Underworld with her husband, making land lose its life, and winter comes. Eurydice tries to survive the cold while Orpheus continues obsessing over finishing his song. Hades, king of the Underworld, is now the boss of the Hadestown factory, where workers build a wall to separate themselves from the rest of the world. When Hades takes Eurydice, promising her money by working in Hadestown, Orpheus will take on a journey to bring her back home with him.
Orpheus and Eurydice
Their story is born from love at first sight. Although Orpheus is clumsy, his chant is capable of making all nature flourish around him and promises Eurydice to give her a home to build together. Eurydice has been spending her whole life trying to survive, and in Orpheus, she sees the first place that she can actually settle down. But when winter comes, differences arise between them: Eurydice tries to find resources to survive, while Orpheus keeps on focusing on his music. Hades, as the lord of Hadestown, convinces her to ride his train, promising her money. Orpheus realizes that Eurydice is gone, so he sets his song aside and commits to going to find her following the railroad line.
When Eurydice discovers that Hades has trapped her in the factory, she laments how she misses her life on Earth with Orpheus. As her contract with Hades says, she must spend eternity building the wall that surrounds the factory, while she will lose all of her memories as time goes by.
Hades and Persephone
The other main couple consists of Hades, God of the Underworld, and Persephone, Goddess of Spring. The original myth tells of how Hades abducted Persephone, and how her mother, Demeter, let all the crops of the earth die out of her sadness. Zeus sent Hermes to rescue Persephone and bring her back to her mother. During her time in hell, Hades tricked Persephone into eating some pomegranate seeds. The rules of the Underworld dictated that anyone who consumed any food from the land of the dead would remain there for eternity. As Persephone only ate six seeds of the pomegranate, it was established that she would have to spend six months in the Underworld with Hades, while the remaining six months she could return to the Earth with her mother.
In the musical, they are an old couple that has been married for many decades and barely stand each other. They are some kind of mature version of Orpheus and Eurydice: Hades is more worried about productivity in the factory rather than his marriage, and Persephone is so disgusted with her husband’s negligence that she turned out to be an alcoholic. She even celebrates when spring comes, and she can dance in the sun. Persephone rejects everything Hadestown has become: a cemetery of exploited workers under the heat of torches and mines. Hadestown runs the “electric city” with an iron fist.
Hermes and the Fates
The show starts with Hermes, the Olympian messenger and God of travelers, warning us that the story we are about to hear has been told many times already, that it is a tragedy, but they will keep singing it again. Apart from the fact that it’s a Broadway show that tells the same story eight times a week, the musical is also a myth from Ancient Greece reimagined in an industrial, post-apocalyptic world. Plus, as a tragedy, it is a story where we are warned from the first moment that it might not end well, and still, it will be told again.
Hermes acts as a narrator, alongside the Fates. In Greek Mythology, the destinies of all humans depended on these three women weavers. Clotho spinned the threat that initiated a human life, Lachesis measured it to determine its lenght, and Atropos cut it to sentence the person to death. The Fates torment Eurydice, pushing her to accept Hades’ deal and manipulating her destony. Hermes, however, helps Orpheus to find the way to Hadestown in his role of messenger and patron of the travelers.
A foretold tragedy
When Orpheus arrives in Hadestown, he is confronted by Hades, stating that Eurydice has signed a contract and has to remain there for eternity. Orpheus urges the other workers to rebel against him, enraging Hades. Before executing him, he lets Orpheus sing one last time. He finishes his song, telling the love story that had Hades and Persephone, touching both the King and Queen of the Underworld. Persephone, moved by how pure Orpheus’s love for Eurydice is, asks Hades to let them go. But Hades has a moral dilemma: if he kills Orpheus, he will become a martyr; and if he lets them go, his legitimacy will be contested.
Hades lets them leave Hadestown with a condition: on their way back, Orpheus will go in the front and must not turn around to look at Eurydice, who will be a few steps back. Hades states that he is not letting them go but letting them try. Persephone has to return to Earth too, as spring is coming, but she and Hades promise each other to give each other another chance next fall. Orpheus resists the urge to look back to check on Eurydice, but fails before doing the last step. Eurydice was, in fact, behind him, but was sent back down to Hadestown, condemned to spend eternity down below.
About the ending of the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, there are two schools of thought. Some say that Hades tested the couple’s trust. In other words, trusting each other is to know that the other person will be behind you no matter what happens. Therefore, Orpheus shouldn’t have turned around if he loved Eurydice enough to trust her. But on the other hand, love also means caring for the other person, making sure they are fine, even when they are with us. In fact, it’s the reason that they are separated in the first place: Orpheus just assumes that because Eurydice is with him, it’s because she is okay. After losing her once, he knows how volatile destiny can be and is filled with doubt, not because he doesn’t trust her anymore, but because he loves her so much that he can’t help turning around to see if this time she is with him. The one lesson Hadestown leaves us with is that loving means turning around to see if the other one is okay, even when they are next to us.
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice is considered a tragedy by many people because it shouldn’t end like that. But because of that, Hadestown is also a tragedy: by telling it again, it will always end the same way.
After the curtain: a love story beyond the stage
Even though Hadestown narrates a tragic story, a romance with a happy ending appeared backstage. Reeve Carney and Ev Noblezada, the actors who originated Orpheus and Eurydice on Broadway in 2019, fell in love and got married this year. Their engagement came when they ended their short run, reprising their roles in the West End. Plus, while planning their wedding, they still got time to play the Emcee and Sally Bowles in Cabaret, also in the West End. Their wedding of course, had many Hadestown features, such as the location in New Orleans and the decoration details.
Recomendations
Hadestown is for sensitive souls seeking a love story. What’s most moving is not the main character’s fate, but the whole journey to see each other again. In fact, I find it even more romantic how Orpheus decides to go to hell just to see her again, rather than their romantic wedding duet. Even though it might seem obvious, Hadestown shows us that, no matter how many risks we have to take and no matter how long our journey might be, it will always be worth it to do it for the ones we love, even if it’s the last time we see them.
