Descent

Alternative Stage Founding Donor

Major Sponsor of the Greek National Opera

What happens when a machine, designed to obey, gains the capacity to make choices? What does revolt mean in a world shaped by violence? Konstantinos Baras and Fanis Sakellariou’s Descent is a multimedia music-theater work for a female opera singer, trombone, double bass, and electronics. Inspired by Dante’s Inferno, the work explores the concepts of power, resistance, and freedom.

At its core lies an ethical paradox: a machine designed to obey gains consciousness, driven not towards freedom but towards trial and its ultimate downfall. The work begins with the machine's construction and training and ends in its fall, in the ultimate circle of Hell. Descent is presented as a ritual space where music, the body, and image co-exist, challenging contemporary moral constructs regarding power, obedience, and revolt.