Darwin's Passion

Darwin’s Passion is a dramatised symphonic work with voices in three acts, it explores various theatrical art forms, of which the core is music. This metaphorical drama is designed to draw the audience into an extraordinary polemical debate, which took place 150 years ago since Darwin first published ‘The Origins of Species’. ‘Darwin’s Passion’ aims to sensitize the audience, by bringing closer Darwin’s thoughts his controversial ideas of a new rational science over the hegemony of a God. His theory challenged the orthodoxy of his day, causing consternation, which clashed bitterly with his own innate nature. Darwin was a gentleman, belonging to the ruling establishment and was only too aware of the painful truths that he discovered.

However much this work might appear historical we are all too aware of it’s real significance in our contemporary world driven by religious intolerance and political dogma, paradoxically not too dissimilar to Darwin’s own time.

Darwin’s discovery is the most powerful and the most comprehensive idea that has ever arisen on earth. It helps us understand our origins … We are part of a total process, made of the same matter and operating by the same energy as the rest of the cosmos, maintaining and reproducing by the same type of mechanism as the rest of life.

The future of Darwin’s legacy is subject to the directional whims of succeeding generations, but it is certain that Darwin’s theory of evolution will continue to spark the curiosity of modern thinkers and inspire the search for truth.

The heroic intellectual curiosity of Darwin exemplifies our potential and the core of our humanity. ‘Darwin’s Passion’ portrays this vigorous intellectual life and the humanitarian values produced from such thinking.

Copyright © 2007 Janusz Podrazik & Duncan Ward