Diamanda Galas, Royal Festival Hall

Diamanda Galas is a woman who once wrote a book called Sh*t of God and whose avant-garde screeching on subjects like AIDS and schizophrenia frequently takes gothic into an area where it could scare bats. Her CV includes stints as a research scientist, prostitute and drug addict. Unsurprisingly, she isn’t normally seen in context. But then there aren’t many line-ups quite like Antony Hegerty’s 2012 Meltdown, where for a month dissident singers rub shoulders with twilight artists.

In fact, on a bill also including the likes of Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and Marc Almond, Galas seems amongst peers. But even they must sometimes find her a little challenging.

With a back catalogue of songs like "Wild Women with Steak-Knives (The Homicidal Love Song for Solo Scream)", and having once performed her Plague Mass half-naked and covered in blood, it could be easy to dismiss the 56-year-old Greek-American as all shock and no substance. But, despite having given some fairly loony interviews over the years, Galas does seem to have integrity. From hanging out with San Francisco’s transvestites to watching her brother die of AIDS, she has lived that of which she sings. She’s also fluent in five languages and not only worked with Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones but also synth-poppers, Erasure.

Her freeform vocalisations sometimes sounded like Marilyn Manson with laryngitisMoreover, there are signs she may be softening. Her most recent album Guilty Guilty Guilty consisted horror-jazz reinterpretations of standards like "Autumn Leaves" and was considerably easier on the ear than the likes of Litanies of Satan. Even her look is getting less extreme. Last night, she appeared on stage wearing a little black dress that mysteriously appeared to turn crimson in front of us. As she sat down at her Steinway, I wondered whether might have something a little fuzzier in store for us.

To begin with, Galas did actually appear a little more conventional than some of the extraordinary audience she attracted. Outside there was a full moon and inside the hall Goths and fashionistas mixed with bohemians and artists. As it turned out there was nothing comfortable about a concert which included several new works. On a simple stage Galas’ long fingers started to spin classical ornamentation over Renaissance figures. And then she triumphantly opened with a voice of pure opera carrying the words of Italian poet Cesare Pavese’s suicide note. 

Three songs were played before Galas spoke, and she only did so twice in the evening: once to thank Antony, the other time to silence a request with “Do you know who you are speaking to. Shut up!” That was virtually the only English of the night. She sang in Italian, Spanish, German, Greek and French, and once in a blues-English. Even if you had no idea what she was singing about (only some translations were provided), the set was well picked and skilfully varied.

Heavier operatic melodies were lifted by the lighter folk influences (especially that of Jaques Brel) and both acted as a counterpoint to the avant-garde juggernauts of “Man and Woman Go Through the Cancer Ward” (Galas music set to Gottfried Benn’s poem of 1912 ), and her reading of “O Death”.

On the former Galas voice was excruciatingly capable of conveying the horror of decaying human flesh. On “O Death” her piano captured an almost voodoo side to the blues. It’s true, her freeform vocalisations in the middle section may have sometimes sounded like Marilyn Manson with laryngitis, but yet these songs demonstrated quite how, beyond the OTT image, lies an artist worthy of serious respect. Particularly as she now seems to have conceded that her wild atonal screams are most effective when used a little sparingly.

The crowd lapped it up. And that compliment was greater given these were people who looked as if they’d seen a few things in their time. Whether or not they have enough stamina to return for this Friday’s screening of Galas’ film Schrei 27, however, remains to be seen. Aimed to convey the experience of insanity, and described as "piercing, guttural screams of pain, and crescendos of raw human sound", it also contains a song, simply entitled “C*nt”.

Diamanda Galas performs "Si La Muerte"