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After the Trojan War, King Agamemnon returns to Argos, where Clytemnestra has plotted to kill him in revenge for the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia and to take power with her lover Aegisthus. She persuades Agamemnon to enter the palace over costly robes, then kills him and Cassandra; Aegisthus joins her in claiming rule.
Scenes from Greek tragedies trace the violence within the House of Atreus: Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigenia, Clytemnestra’s revenge, and the retaliatory killing by Orestes and Electra. The sequence follows Orestes through his pursuit by the Furies to his eventual reunion with Iphigenia.
Fifty brides flee to an Italian manor to avoid marrying their fifty cousins. As the wedding day approaches, the group confronts gender politics, love and domestic violence; the modern adaptation recasts Aeschylus’s suppliants as refugees, with the grooms pursuing them by helicopter.
After Agamemnon returns from Troy, his wife Clitennestra kills him, ostensibly to avenge their daughter Iphigenia but also to be with her lover Egisto. Seven years later, Orestes returns in disguise and, aided by his sister Elettra, kills Clitennestra and Egisto before going into exile.
Inspired by Aeschylus's Oresteia, the ballet presents events leading to Clytemnestra's decision to kill Agamemnon after his return from the Trojan War. It centers her perspective and includes the stories of Helen, Electra, and Cassandra.
Refugees fleeing Africa reach Europe across the Mediterranean, where most are denied protection. Jelinek intertwines their modern experience with allusions to Aeschylus' The Suppliants, contrasting the ancient story's asylum granted to refugees with contemporary European policy and questioning the relationship between humanitarian ideals and human rights.
A two-act French verse tragedy in the style of Greek drama, adapting the first two parts of Aeschylus’ Oresteia: Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers.
After Patroclus’s death, Thetis visits Achilles with her Nereid sisters, consoles him and brings new armor forged by Hephaestus. The sisters form the chorus as Achilles prepares to return to battle against Hector.
After Artemis and Apollo kill Niobe’s children, she sits silently beside their tombs while her father Tantalus arrives unaware of the tragedy. He learns what happened and tries in vain to comfort her; the surviving fragments suggest the tragedy centers on mourning and human limits before the gods.
Aeschylus’s three-play tragedy follows Agamemnon’s murder after his return from Troy, Orestes’s revenge against his mother, and the trial that replaces the family’s cycle of vengeance with a civic judgment.
The opera is based on Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy and covers Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides; the source provides no plot narrative beyond the parts and tableau headings.
On Lemnos, where the Greeks abandoned him after a snakebite wound, Philoctetes is sought by Odysseus because his bow is needed to conquer Troy. Odysseus, who helped maroon him, wins his trust with a false story; the surviving accounts leave uncertain how he secures Philoctetes’ cooperation.
At Achilles’ hut outside Troy, Priam and his Phrygian attendants seek the release of Hector’s body. The lost play included a long, veiled silence by Achilles, the weighing of Hector’s body against gold, and likely a lament and funeral procession.
Chained to a rock in the Caucasus for giving fire and knowledge to humanity, Prometheus refuses to tell Zeus the secret that could threaten his rule. He recounts his gifts to humankind and foretells Zeus’s eventual fall. Io visits and learns of her future journey; when Prometheus continues to refuse Hermes’s demand, Zeus’s thunderbolt sends him into Hades.
A five-scene scenic oratorio in which Prometheus, chained to a rock by Zeus, prophesies that a savior of mankind will appear after ten generations.
Prometheus is chained to a mountain by Zeus's agents for giving fire and knowledge to humanity. He recounts his defiance to the Oceanids and Io, foretells events that threaten Zeus, and is cast into the earth after refusing to reveal his secret.
In this fragmentary tragedy, Prometheus endures Zeus’s punishment as a chorus visits him. Heracles kills the eagle tormenting him and frees him; Prometheus foretells Heracles’s labors, while reconciliation with Zeus belongs to the trilogy’s final play.
As the Argive army led by seven champions attacks Thebes, King Eteocles consults with the city's women and assigns defenders to the gates. When he learns that his brother Polynices commands the assault at the seventh gate, Eteocles resolves to fight him; the brothers kill each other, and the chorus mourns them.
Pursued by the Furies for killing his mother, Orestes appeals to Athena in Athens. She establishes a trial before citizens of the Areopagus; when the votes tie, Athena acquits Orestes. She persuades the Furies to accept a new role as protective forces in the city, ending the cycle of private vengeance in favor of judgment through law.
Aeschylus's lost tragedy appears to have shown Jason and the Argonauts arriving on Lemnos and undergoing initiation into the Kabeiroi mystery cult.
Years after Agamemnon’s murder, his son Orestes returns to Argos with Pylades and meets his sister Electra at their father’s tomb. Following Apollo’s command and the Chorus’s encouragement, Orestes and Electra plan revenge: Orestes kills Aegisthus and then, despite hesitation, kills their mother Clytemnestra. The Furies pursue him for matricide.
In Susa, Queen Atossa and the Persian elders await news of Xerxes's campaign against Greece. A messenger reports the Persian defeat at Salamis; the ghost of Darius condemns Xerxes's hubris, and Xerxes returns in grief to lament the losses with the chorus.
The Danaid sisters flee forced marriages to their Egyptian cousins and seek refuge at a sanctuary in Argos. King Pelasgus fears both offending Zeus by rejecting them and provoking war by protecting them, so he puts the question to the people, who vote to shelter them. An Egyptian herald arrives to reclaim the women, but Pelasgus drives him away and the Danaids end the play safely inside Argos.
After the Trojan War, King Agamemnon returns to Argos, where Clytemnestra has plotted to kill him in revenge for the sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia and to take power with her lover Aegisthus. She persuades Agamemnon to enter the palace over costly robes, then kills him and Cassandra; Aegisthus joins her in claiming rule.
Scenes from Greek tragedies trace the violence within the House of Atreus: Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigenia, Clytemnestra’s revenge, and the retaliatory killing by Orestes and Electra. The sequence follows Orestes through his pursuit by the Furies to his eventual reunion with Iphigenia.
Fifty brides flee to an Italian manor to avoid marrying their fifty cousins. As the wedding day approaches, the group confronts gender politics, love and domestic violence; the modern adaptation recasts Aeschylus’s suppliants as refugees, with the grooms pursuing them by helicopter.
After Agamemnon returns from Troy, his wife Clitennestra kills him, ostensibly to avenge their daughter Iphigenia but also to be with her lover Egisto. Seven years later, Orestes returns in disguise and, aided by his sister Elettra, kills Clitennestra and Egisto before going into exile.
Inspired by Aeschylus's Oresteia, the ballet presents events leading to Clytemnestra's decision to kill Agamemnon after his return from the Trojan War. It centers her perspective and includes the stories of Helen, Electra, and Cassandra.
Refugees fleeing Africa reach Europe across the Mediterranean, where most are denied protection. Jelinek intertwines their modern experience with allusions to Aeschylus' The Suppliants, contrasting the ancient story's asylum granted to refugees with contemporary European policy and questioning the relationship between humanitarian ideals and human rights.
A two-act French verse tragedy in the style of Greek drama, adapting the first two parts of Aeschylus’ Oresteia: Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers.
After Patroclus’s death, Thetis visits Achilles with her Nereid sisters, consoles him and brings new armor forged by Hephaestus. The sisters form the chorus as Achilles prepares to return to battle against Hector.
After Artemis and Apollo kill Niobe’s children, she sits silently beside their tombs while her father Tantalus arrives unaware of the tragedy. He learns what happened and tries in vain to comfort her; the surviving fragments suggest the tragedy centers on mourning and human limits before the gods.
Aeschylus’s three-play tragedy follows Agamemnon’s murder after his return from Troy, Orestes’s revenge against his mother, and the trial that replaces the family’s cycle of vengeance with a civic judgment.
The opera is based on Aeschylus’ Oresteia trilogy and covers Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides; the source provides no plot narrative beyond the parts and tableau headings.
On Lemnos, where the Greeks abandoned him after a snakebite wound, Philoctetes is sought by Odysseus because his bow is needed to conquer Troy. Odysseus, who helped maroon him, wins his trust with a false story; the surviving accounts leave uncertain how he secures Philoctetes’ cooperation.
At Achilles’ hut outside Troy, Priam and his Phrygian attendants seek the release of Hector’s body. The lost play included a long, veiled silence by Achilles, the weighing of Hector’s body against gold, and likely a lament and funeral procession.
Chained to a rock in the Caucasus for giving fire and knowledge to humanity, Prometheus refuses to tell Zeus the secret that could threaten his rule. He recounts his gifts to humankind and foretells Zeus’s eventual fall. Io visits and learns of her future journey; when Prometheus continues to refuse Hermes’s demand, Zeus’s thunderbolt sends him into Hades.
A five-scene scenic oratorio in which Prometheus, chained to a rock by Zeus, prophesies that a savior of mankind will appear after ten generations.
Prometheus is chained to a mountain by Zeus's agents for giving fire and knowledge to humanity. He recounts his defiance to the Oceanids and Io, foretells events that threaten Zeus, and is cast into the earth after refusing to reveal his secret.
In this fragmentary tragedy, Prometheus endures Zeus’s punishment as a chorus visits him. Heracles kills the eagle tormenting him and frees him; Prometheus foretells Heracles’s labors, while reconciliation with Zeus belongs to the trilogy’s final play.
As the Argive army led by seven champions attacks Thebes, King Eteocles consults with the city's women and assigns defenders to the gates. When he learns that his brother Polynices commands the assault at the seventh gate, Eteocles resolves to fight him; the brothers kill each other, and the chorus mourns them.
Pursued by the Furies for killing his mother, Orestes appeals to Athena in Athens. She establishes a trial before citizens of the Areopagus; when the votes tie, Athena acquits Orestes. She persuades the Furies to accept a new role as protective forces in the city, ending the cycle of private vengeance in favor of judgment through law.
Aeschylus's lost tragedy appears to have shown Jason and the Argonauts arriving on Lemnos and undergoing initiation into the Kabeiroi mystery cult.
Years after Agamemnon’s murder, his son Orestes returns to Argos with Pylades and meets his sister Electra at their father’s tomb. Following Apollo’s command and the Chorus’s encouragement, Orestes and Electra plan revenge: Orestes kills Aegisthus and then, despite hesitation, kills their mother Clytemnestra. The Furies pursue him for matricide.
In Susa, Queen Atossa and the Persian elders await news of Xerxes's campaign against Greece. A messenger reports the Persian defeat at Salamis; the ghost of Darius condemns Xerxes's hubris, and Xerxes returns in grief to lament the losses with the chorus.
The Danaid sisters flee forced marriages to their Egyptian cousins and seek refuge at a sanctuary in Argos. King Pelasgus fears both offending Zeus by rejecting them and provoking war by protecting them, so he puts the question to the people, who vote to shelter them. An Egyptian herald arrives to reclaim the women, but Pelasgus drives him away and the Danaids end the play safely inside Argos.