The New Gilgamesh Opera: Musical and Cultural Insights

Edited by Aaron Michael Ullrey

The following Research Reflection is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the academic study of religions.

“Your name shall live; your deeds shall be your legacy. Your legacy: your immortality,” the goddess Ishtar says this to king Gilgamesh in the final scene in the new opera titled Gilgamesh, a research-based, modern production commissioned by the Assyrian Arts Institute that incorporates living Assyrian cultural and musical traditions to present the ancient Mesopotamian epic, preserving and displaying Assyrian performance practices on stage for contemporary audiences. The opera Gilgamesh premieres on March 28 in Los Angeles. 

Serving as a dramaturg and ethnomusicologist for Gilgamesh, I collaborated with composer Derrick Skye and artistic director/librettist Diana Farrell to ensure the opera thoughtfully integrates authentic cultural elements from ancient Mesopotamia. These elements are drawn from historical sources, including the ancient tablets on which the Epic of Gilgamesh was transcribed and visual forms such as relief sculptures and cylinder seals. 

Spirituality and the arts were closely interconnected in ancient civilizations, where sacred narratives were expressed through literature, performance, and visual representation. The Epic of Gilgamesh existed as a literary text, recorded on twelve clay tablets in cuneiform script; it displays rich artistic and cultural expressions. In the 1850s, the tablets were discovered in the royal library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. In addition to the epic being recited and performed as courtly or ceremonial entertainment by professional singers called naru, the Epic of Gilgamesh was highly valued throughout Mesopotamian society: Archaeological evidence shows that school students copied and studied the text.  

The Epic of Gilgamesh is not just a narrative text. It is depicted in visual forms such as relief sculptures and cylinder seals that

 present key scenes from the narrative, including Gilgamesh and Enkidu, created by the gods to confront Gilgamesh, battling Humbaba, the monstrous guardian appointed by the god Enlil to protect the sacred trees of the Cedar Forest in the Lebanon Mountains. The opera Gilgamesh is a new depiction of the epic that not only performs the text but also enacts these visual forms. 

Through my fieldwork collecting and recording Assyrian musical traditions, I aim to safeguard them and preserve the continuity of performance across generations, protecting these sounds as historians and linguists preserve ancient manuscripts. Given the political situation in Iraq, this work is time-sensitive and challenging. Assyrians have experienced major demographic changes in their historical lands in the northern region of Iraq, where hundreds of villages have been destroyed, appropriated, and renamed, leaving Assyrian minorities in their own ancestral lands. 

Popular, large-scale art forms like Gilgamesh attract wide audiences by using multiple cultural components: music, story, costumes, scenery, and dance. Presenting research findings in academic publications alone cannot fully convey the scope and longevity of the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh. Through public performances like the Gilgamesh opera, audiences directly engage and experience Mesopotamian culture, especially its sound and music traditions.  

The ancient epic’s Akkadian language is integrated throughout the opera with parts of Diana Farrell’s English libretto translated into Akkadian by Assyriologist Zack Cherry. Singing in Akkadian allows the music to follow the natural syllabic and rhythmic patterns of the epic text, enriching the narrative’s dramatic and performative impact. Although approximately 2,400 years have passed since the fall of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, Akkadian words predominate in contemporary classical and vernacular Assyrian dialects. For Assyrian audiences, singing in Akkadian creates a direct linguistic and cultural connection to the ancient world.  

Gilgamesh incorporates traditional instruments and Eastern tonalities not typically found in the Western orchestra, including the zurna, a loud double-reed woodwind, and the dawla, a large double-headed drum, as well as the qanun, tambour, oud, and nai. Distinctive chant genres from the Tyareh, an Assyrian tribe, are also featured, including raweh (male chants) and lilyana (female chants).  Furthermore, Assyrian dances appear in multiple scenes. By using these sonic and movement elements, the composer conveys Mesopotamian oral and communal cultures in an accessible way while preserving ancient cultural traditions. 

Generally, operas use scenic design, costumes, and theatrical staging to create settings, convey narrative, and enhance emotional and dramatic experiences, but alternative performance spaces, such as museums, can bridge scholarship and performance. We previewed Gilgamesh at the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East in November 2025. The performance, featuring a small ensemble of musicians and singers, was performed in the Mesopotamia Gallery, surrounded by replicas of ancient reliefs and sculptures from Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian times. Performing in this museum space drew musicians and audience alike into ancient worlds. 

Dances, chants, instruments, Eastern tonalities, and the Akkadian language honor the origins of the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh and shape the musical language of the modern Gilgamesh opera. The opera functions not only as an artistic production but as applied scholarship, presenting endangered Assyrian performance traditions and transforming archival literary texts into living performance. The opera itself is a method of documentation and preservation. 

Additional reflections from Eve Sada:
“Sacred Sounds: Assyrian Chant Legacy”

“Cultural Rhythms of The Assyrian Villages of Nahla Valley”  

“Commemoration as Culture: Dukhrana and Shahra Rituals in Assyrian Tradition”