The Ancient Theater of Epidaurus is the world’s largest non-amplified performance space, seating 14,000 spectators. Each summer the Athens and Epidaurus Festival, almost exclusively devoted to ancient Greek drama, attracts a devoted and largely local audience.
Occasionally, the festival presents related works in other genres. As a result, Epidaurus enjoys a special place in operatic history. There in 1961, Maria Callas headed a performance of Luigi Cherubini’s 1797 opera Medea, based on the Euripides play. To celebrate the 65th anniversary of that event, the Greek National Opera recently mounted a one-night-only performance, starring Anna Pirozzi, one the leading Italian spinto sopranos singing today.
Constructed in the 4th century BCE as a sanctuary dedicated to Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine and healing, the theater at Epidaurus embodied the belief that drama and music promote physical and spiritual well-being. Twenty-five hundred years later, no venue can match its blend of natural beauty, architectural harmony, and acoustical purity one finds at Epidaurus.
These distinctive qualities work subliminally to prepare audiences for collective immersion in an artistic performance. Epidaurus is sited in the remote Peloponnesian countryside, far from the distractions of everyday urban life. One approaches by walking several hundred meters uphill through solemn groves of pines and olives. Its symmetrical fan of unform stone benches rises steeply into a wooded hillside—a design praised ever since as the most beautiful of its type. After sunset, a starry canopy unspoiled by light pollution gently directs spectators’ attention to the performance below. Direct sightlines unimpeded by any intervening architectural element keep it there. The logistical impracticality of long intermissions allows performances to unfold as one uninterrupted whole.
The acoustics at Epidaurus are legendary. A softly spoken word, pianissimo sung tone, or instrumental note resounds with uncanny transparency and pinpoint directionality. At the same time, the overall ambiance seems unusually peaceful: the Ancient Greek design deliberately absorbs lower frequency sound, including from wind, rustling trees, audience members, and other ambient noises. (The Romans would later place a high wall behind the stage, as at Orange’s Théâtre Antique, thereby boosting volume and preserving lower frequencies—but at the expense of tranquility. The difference resembles that between pre-1950 and modern recorded sound.) The night we attended, only the hoot of a small owl (and the odd beep from a hovering TV drone) penetrated the sanctuary.
The company searched back to production documents and photographs to recreate the original production of 1961—an iconic staging that toured Europe. In today’s opera world, when most opera productions indulge a cacophony of dubious directorial conceits most often drawn from Hollywood action and horror films, a production created more than a half century ago by now deceased artists steeped in ancient Greek drama comes as a welcome revelation. Famed director Yannis Tsarouchis’s simple unit set of small temples around a square, Alexis Minotis’s disciplined avoidance of overacting, and legendary choreographer Maria Hors’ graceful chorus of maidens gently swaying in long dresses like figures on an ancient vase, displayed aesthetic sensibilities we have since lost. In addition, Christos Tziogkas deserves special praise for his relighting, which eschews even a hint of garishness while casting striking geometrical shadows.
Cherubini was no compositional genius, but he was an extremely well-schooled and fascinatingly progressive musician. Though his operas quickly fell from Parisian favor after the Revolutionary and Napoleonic years, several generations of German composers held him in high esteem. Beethoven deemed Cherubini his most distinguished contemporary. Schumann, Brahms and Wagner extoled his style and rigor, as did Berlioz, who mocked the man but respected his music.
Among Cherubini’s 29 operas, only Medea keeps a (tiny) toehold in today’s operatic canon. This is due almost entirely to Callas, who between 1953 and 1963 took part in 31 performances, six of which survive as bootlegs and a seventh as a studio recording. She proved that an infusion of musical imagination and dramatic commitment by a charismatic star can bring this uneven work back to life.
A contemporary performance of Medea starring a major singer makes news across the opera world. Sopranos with attitude (among them, Anna Christina Antonacci, Sondra Radvonovsky, Sonya Yoncheva and even the young Lise Davidsen) have taken a stab. In one way or another, almost all have succumbed to the temptation to imitate Callas’s scenery-chewing approach, though inevitably without matching her biting textual delivery, fastidious bel canto technique, and volcanic emotional temperament.
Pirozzi’s interpretation is deliberately different. In her words, “I don’t want to copy, I don’t want to imitate.” She remained far more restrained throughout, delivering classical elegance and precision rather than romantic sweep. This musical approach fits her voice: though large, it is more cooly penetrating than warmly enveloping and remarkably even across registers—quite unlike that of Callas, who was said to have three different voices.
Such deliberate understatement is Pirozzi’s stated intent, and it naturally leads to a portrayal of Medea as less a fiery sorceress and more a normal woman in despair. To be fair, this was almost certainly the way the ancients viewed Euripides’ Medea play. It may well also have been Cherubini’s own conception, especially before the German composer Franz Lachner replaced the original spoken texts with anachronistically Romantic accompanied recitativo.
Pirozzi’s restrained interpretation proved most touching in Act One, where Medea tries to persuade Giasone to return to their conventional marriage. Her tender appeal was punctuated by lovely high pianissimo notes. In Act 2, Pirozzi projected quietly disciplined resolve rather than vicious fury, even when this seemed curiously understated, as during her comments on the preparations for Giasone’s second marriage. And in Act 3, where Medea casts aside motherly instincts and unleashes the proud and murderous sorceress within, her behavior would surely seem anticlimactic to anyone who cannot forget Callas (who can?) or is simply more attuned to modern productions featuring sopranos crawling across the stage amidst bloody gore.
Another consequence of the historical memory Callas has left behind has been to transform Medea a one-woman opera. True, Cherubini keeps Medea continuously on stage for several hours. Yet he also writes beautiful music for other characters. This performance featured singers who have played important roles at the Greek National Opera.
All but one shared Pirozzi’s restrained approach. The exception was mezzo Alisa Kolosova. Few operatic maids, companions or confidants of lead sopranos receive their own arias, and almost none of them are as memorable as the mournful lament with obbligato bassoon that Cherubini penned for Medea’s devoted handmaid Neris. Kolosova’s proceeded slowly, her dark and resonant voice easily filling the ancient space, and received the warmest ovation of the evening. Her success hints at what performances in this venue might be like with the spinto and dramatic singers of yesteryear.
In Callas’s days, the Giasone of choice was tenor Jon Vickers, who possessed just such a voice. French tenor Jean-François Borras offered some refined singing in the middle registers and (like the entire cast save Kolosova) flawless diction. Yet his soft-grained high notes and underpowered low ones did little to suggest a hero who had won the Golden Fleece, even with a sorceress at his side.
Bass Tassis Christoyannis has sung with the Greek National Opera (and many other places) for 37 years, and today he is clearly a local audience favorite. Yet despite precise diction and noble delivery, his account lacked regal grandeur and basso depth—perhaps in part because ancient acoustics are unkind to low voices. As Glauce, Giacone’s would-be second wife, soprano Danae Kontora sang with lovely, if at times almost inaudible, delicacy.
The orchestra of the Greek National Opera performed fluently, and its chorus sang lustily, under the experienced baton of Jacques Lacombe, who avoided over-romanticizing the music. Listening with such transparent acoustics allows one to appreciate how Cherubini begins by nodding to Gluck and Mozart (the latter died just six years previously), and ends by foreshadowing Beethoven, Bellini and Verdi.
This was solid casting of an interestingly rare opera, but the unique venue made the evening. Opera goers should remember that, though he never traveled to Greece, Wagner viewed Epidaurus as his primary model in designing his own legendary temple to art, the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth. His overarching goal was to recreate for modern operagoers the mystical appreciation of art as the type of integrated multi-media work (Gesamtkunstwerk) that he imagined Greeks had once shared at Epidaurus.
To that end, Wagner borrowed similar techniques. He erected a quasi-religious sanctuary on top of a remote wooded hill. Inside, hard benches without backs and resonant surfaces furthered acoustical purity, while fan-shaped seating with direct sightlines and indoor darkness (then an innovation) directed the audience’s attention solely toward the stage. To maintain the artistic spell, applause was discouraged. Just as anyone who loves opera, or Western performing arts more generally, should consider attending at least one performance at Bayreuth, so they should take any opportunity to do so at Epidaurus.
Andrew Moravcsik
Medea
Composed by Luigi Cherubini
Libretto by François-Benoît Hoffman
Reimagined version of the historic production of 1961
Cast and Production Staff:
Medea – Anna Pirozzi, Glauce – Danae Kontora, Neris – Alisa Kolosova, Giasone – Jean-François Borras, Creon – Tassis Christoyannis
Conductor – Jacques Lacombe, Chorus Master – Agathangelos Georgakatos. Soloists, Orchestra and Chorus of the Greek National Opera.
Original Stage Director – Alexis Minotis, Original Set & Costume Design – Yannis Tsarouchis, Original Choreography – Maria Hors, Artistic direction of the Adaptation –Giorgos Koumendakis; Stage direction of the Adaptation – Panaghis Pagoulatos, Set Design of the Adaptation – Lili Pezanou, Costume design of the Adaptation – TotaPritsa, Lighting Design of the Adaptation – Christos Tziogkas
Ancient Theater of Epidaurus, Epidaurus, Greece, 20 June 2026
Except as otherwise indicated, all photos © Giannis Antonoglou