The National Opera presents an exciting opera diptych: two masterful one-act operas written at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and which deal with overcoming mental limits.
For the new production of Aleko, by Sergei Rachmaninoff, ELLS entrusts the direction to the singular Fani Ardan, five years after the great success of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.
The highly successful direction of Béla Bartók’s Cyanopogon Tower is directed by Themelis Glynatsis.
From November 12th and for six performances in the ELLS Stavros Niarchos Hall of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, under the musical direction of Fabrizio Ventura.
The production will be filmed and broadcast internationally next December on Mezzo TV, with the support of a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) to strengthen the artistic extroversion of ELS.
With the aim of further expanding its repertoire, the National Opera proposes for the 2024/25 season another ambitious opera diptych, composed of two one-act operatic masterpieces written just 26 years apart – in 1892 Alekos and in 1918 its Cyanophogons Tower – and which are rarely seen.
With Alec by Sergei Rachmaninov and Bluebird Tower by Béla Bartók, lyrical art pushes us into a world of mental borders, violent human relationships, social conventions, extreme emotions and deeply rooted prejudices. At the same time, we have the rare opportunity to discover the early student period of the great Rachmaninoff, but also the dark and virtuoso musical language of the great Bartok.
ALEKO
Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, one of the most popular composers of the 20th century, who became world famous mainly for his symphonic and piano works, also composed three operas. The first of these – on the occasion of his graduation from the Moscow Conservatory, aged just 19 – is the one-act play Aleko, written in 1892 and based on the poem The Gypsies, by Alexander Pushkin. The result was highly regarded, awarded the Gold Medal and won the admiration of, among others, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. A year later it was premiered to great success at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. In 1899, on the occasion of the centenary of Pushkin’s birth, Aleko was performed again in Saint Petersburg with the then still young but later famous bass player Fyodor Chaliapin in the central role.
The opera Aleko dialogues with two distinct worlds: the gypsy community and urban culture. The play is about a cosmopolitan bourgeois who kills his gypsy wife Zemfira and her lover, unable to accept the gypsy ideal of freedom. In this initial work, Rachmaninov adopts the European operatic and symphonic musical language, which he enriches with oriental touches taken from the Russian operatic tradition, but also with elements that refer to sacred music.
In the first performance of Rachmaninoff’s masterpiece at the National Opera – which is also the first of the work in Greece -, the direction is signed by the unique Fani Ardan in her second collaboration with the National Opera, five years after the great success Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. The star of French cinema with more than sixty films and more than thirty plays, who was the muse of Truffaut, star of Zeffirelli and Polanski, chose Aleco because of his great love for Pushkin and gypsies. Through the staging of the one-act opera, Ardan tries to provide answers to the questions that societies ask about the limits and the price of freedom and love. As he notes: “I want to tell the story in 1824, the time when Pushkin wrote Gypsies, from which Rachmaninoff and his librettist drew the material for the opera. Pushkin dreamed of freedom, a pure and wild world. He longed for a life away from a vain, selfish, prejudiced and privileged society. I frequented cabarets in the suburbs of Saint Petersburg, where I could see and hear gypsies dancing and singing, a free and happy world, without limits. Aleko’s character is Pushkin, this “foreigner” who wants to live the free life of the gypsies, embracing their ideas, their illusions, their romantic vision, their miracles. Aleko’s character is us who want to live in a free world, but don’t want to pay the price.”
To transport us to Russia in 1824 and create a magical world on stage, Fanny Ardan invites Pierre-Andre Weitz for the sets, Katarzyna Lewinska for the costumes, Israel Galvan for the choreography-kinesiology and César Godefroy for the lighting.
The eminent set designer Pierre-Andre Weitz – a permanent collaborator in Olivier Py’s performances since 1989 – considers scenography as the choreography of the space and plans scene changes based on the dramaturgy. He designed more than 150 sets for theater and opera directors while teaching scenography at the National School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg.
Internationally acclaimed costume designer Katarzyna Lewinska has designed the costumes for more than forty films in Germany and Poland, as well as for more than twenty theater and opera productions in Europe and America.
The famous choreographer Israel Galván, son of the legendary flamenco dancers José Galván and Eugenias de los Reyes, although trained in classical flamenco, became known worldwide for his new and pioneering approach to the tradition of this dance: without forgetting his roots, he recodes the flamenco body language mixing it with elements from different cultures.
The artistically restless lighting designer César Godefroy has been creating lighting for theater and opera for the past fifteen years as an integral part of the show’s scenography and dramaturgy. He presented his productions, among others, at the Avignon Festival, the Lyon Opera, the Odeon de Paris and the Comédie Française.
Main Greek lyrical artists. Greek international baritone Tassis Christogiannopoulos will make his debut in the role of Alekos. The young gypsy is played by ELS tenor Yiannis Christopoulos, Zemfira by contralto Myrsini Margaritis, the elderly woman by ELS bassist Yiannis Giannisis and the gypsy by mezzo-soprano Ines Zikou. The ELLS Choir is directed by Agathangelos Georgakatos.
THE CIANOPOGON TOWER
The highly successful staging of Béla Bartók’s one-act opera The Tower of Cyanopogon, directed by Themelis Glynatsis, presented for the first time by ELLS in the 2022/23 season, will be the second part of the operatic doublet. Béla Balazs’ poetic text is based on Charles Perrault’s fairy tale, The Cyanogon, and refers to two characters, the Cyanogon and his most recent wife, Judith. As she wants to know about her husband’s past, Judith opens the seven doors of Cyanopogon Castle, one by one. Behind each one she discovers a different world, the incalculable riches, the heroism and glory of her husband, but also the pain, the tears, the blood and the cruelty.
Balazs’ symbolic text gave Bartók the opportunity to compose one of his most impressive scores, using the timbres of the instruments of an extremely large orchestra, which also includes the imposing sound of the church organ, and captures with incredible power each of the mysterious images of the work.
Themelis Glynatsis – one of the few directors of the younger generation who specialized in lyrical theater, in a creative and inspired way – created for the two characters in the play a universe of multiple realities, mental traumas, hidden memories and unopened spaces. The impressive scenic installation – where the tower where the story takes place emerges like a palimpsest of constantly changing places – as well as the costumes, were designed by the illustrious British scenographer and costume designer Leslie Travers. Kinesiology is done by Katerina Gevetzi, lighting by Stella Kaltsou and projections by Marios Gambierakis with Chrysoula Korovesi. Sound design was performed by Tasos Tsigas.
The director states: “The story of Cyanopogon, one of the bloodiest narratives in Western tradition, is about an aristocrat who marries young women, only to kill them when they defy a ban on exploring his castle. Bartók transforms the story of Cyanopogon into a modern opera-thriller, deeply mysterious, full of symbolism, with rare psychological clarity and emotional intensity. Cyanopogonas, the Hungarian composer’s only opera, is considered one of the most important lyrical works of the 20th century due to its innovative musical and dramatic style. The music of Bartók, the third “protagonist” of the story, not only brings to life the desires and impasses of the two characters, but simultaneously shapes with incomparable musical inspiration and daring the labyrinthine universe of the tower, from the chilling atmosphere of the torture chamber to the Cyanopogon’s magical garden lyricism. The play functions both as a symbolic anatomy of a love affair and as a descent into the psychic enigma hidden by the mysterious Duke Cyanopogonas. The show consciously moves away from the serial killer mythology that usually accompanies this work, and focuses on a man and a woman, on the first night of their marriage, who are gradually immersed in a universe of multiple realities, psychic traumas, hidden memories and vacant spaces”.
The two roles in the play are played by internationally recognized bassist Tasos Apostolou and the triple Violetta Lousta, who received very positive reviews in the first production of the production, in 2023.
The National Opera Orchestra in the diptych is conducted by Italian chief musician Fabrizio Ventura, who has performed on some of the world’s biggest stages, whilst also becoming known to ELLS audiences for the successful revival of Lady Macbeth in Mtsensk in 2023.
Opera diptych
Aleko – Sergei Rachmaninoff and the Bluebird Tower – Béla Bartók
November 12, 14, 16, 19, 21 and 23, 2024 • Start time: 7:30 pm
Stavros Niarchos ELS Hall – Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center
Musical Direction: Fabrício Ventura
Aleco (new production)
Directed by: Fanny Ardan
Scenario: Pierre-André Weitz
Costumes: Katarzyna Lewinska
Choreography, kinesiology: Israel Galvan
Lighting: César Godefroy
Choir director: Agathangelos Georgakatos
Aleko: Tassis Christogiannopoulos
Young gypsy: Yiannis Christopoulos
Zemfira: Myrsini Margariti
An old man: Giannis Giannisis
A gypsy: Ines Zikou
With the National Opera Orchestra and Choir
Cyanopogon Tower (revival)
Director: Themelis Glynatsis
Sets and costumes: Leslie Travers
Kinesiology: Katerina Gevetzi
Lighting: Stella Kaltsou
Exhibitions: Marios Gambierakis, Chrysoula Korovesi
Sound design: Tasos Tsigas
Cyanopogonas: Tasos Apostolou
Judith: Violetta Lusta
With the National Opera Orchestra
Ticket prices: €15, €20, €35, €40, €55, €65, €80, €100
Student, child: €15 • Reduced visibility: €10
Pre-sale: ELS Funds (daily 9am-9pm | 2130885700) & www.ticketservices.gr