Hear my voice. Lament as the key to the musical sequence in Seven Against Thebes
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Abstract
This paper focuses on recovering the material dimension of the voice in tragic performance, countering the primacy of content over sonority. Drawing on Cavarero's theory of voice politics (2005) and ethnopoetic studies (Hymes, 1981; Calame 2010, 2024), it is argued that in Seven Against Thebes, the initial and final choral odes function as a set designed by the playwright to show the normalization of lament. This musical sequence is key to understanding how the chorus, essential to the play, forces the audience to question and redefine which voice is considered as authoritative, since it is in choral singing that dramatic conflicts and twists reside.
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