Name: Wozzeck
Start: 2020-01-19T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2020-02-02T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Stavros Niarchos Hall

Organization

Singer

Baritone

Tassis Christoyannis

Wozzeck

Tenor

Peter Wedd

Drum Major

Vassilis Kavayas

Andres

Peter Hoare

Captain

Bass

Yanni Yannissis

Doctor

Vangelis Maniatis

First apprentice

Michalis Psyrras

Second apprentice

Panagiotis Priftis

The madman

Soprano

Nadine Lehner

Marie

Contralto

Margarita Syngeniotou

Margret

Conductor

Vassilis Christopoulos

Stage director

Olivier Py

Set designer

Pierre-André Weitz

Lighting designer

Bertrand Killy

Chorus master

Agathangelos Georgakatos

Costume designer

Greek National Opera

Orchestra

GNO Orchestra

Others

GNO Chorus

Greek National Opera Children's Chorus

German

Athens

Greece

SNFCC

Alternative Stage

Walk through the doors of Athens's brand new Greek National Opera (the ribbon was cut in 2017), a magnificent complex straight out of the mind of Italian architectural genius Renzo Piano. To mark its 80th year of existence, the opera company welcomes a new production of Berg's Wozzeck. Olivier Py's direction makes optimal use of a complex stage design by Pierre-André Weitz, where rooms and staircases tangle on a revolving stage, in a continuous cycle of doom... Vassilis Christopoulos directs a well-balanced performance of Berg's atonal score, while local superstar Tassis Christoyannis shines in the title role, along with Nadine Lehner and her delightfully rich tone.

Composed between 1912 and 1922, Wozzeck premiered in 1925 at the Berlin State Opera, with Erich Kleiber on the podium. Inspired by a Büchner play, the opera in three acts shows off Berg's genius in the development of musical structure, with each scene following a specific musical form: pavane, gavotte, passacaglia, polka, fugue... The opera uses Sprechgesang ("spoken song"), a technique popularized by Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. Loosely based on real events, the work recounts the wicked tale of a young soldier’s descent into madness due to jealousy, among other things...

Wozzeck Berg

Public

Greek

English

Approved

Stavros Niarchos Hall

A new Wozzeck is born for the first time at the Greek National Opera

Un nouveau Wozzeck naît pour la première fois à l’Opéra National de Grèce

One of the 20th-century lyric theatre masterpieces, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, will be presented for the first time by the Greek National Opera in a new production directed by the top French director Olivier Py.

In the title role, the internationally acclaimed Greek baritone of the GNO, Tassis Christoyannis, will sing for the first time one of the most taxing roles in the modern repertory.

The opera is based on Georg Buchner’s play Woyzeck, which remained unfinished and was published in 1879, more than forty years after the writer’s death. It recounts scenes from the miserable life of soldier Wozzeck in a village. When his wife cheats on him, Wozzeck kills her and after that, in his attempt to cover his tracks in a state of delirium, he drowns in a lake. Wozzeck is one of the first extensive operas of the 20th century written in an atonal idiom with the use of Sprechgesang – a type of vocalization between speech and song. Both due to its importance for the history of music modernism and for the quality of its music in itself, it has been a staple of the repertory of all major opera houses in the world.

Olivier Py, director of one of the world’s most important festivals, the Festival d’ Avignon,  is considered one of the greatest figures of the modern French culture. In his threefold capacity as actor, author and director, he has worked in cinema, theatre and opera, driven always by his determination to engage through his art the concerns of our times in a poetic and at the same time political dialogue. Since 1999 when he directed his first opera in Nancy, until today he has presented highly successful opera productions in Geneva, Lausanne, Salzburg, Lyon, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Paris, Brussels, Vienna, Moscow, Munich, Berlin, etc. His artistic identity is clear, and the political aspect of his work is recognizable. Having as a steady collaborator scenographer-costume designer Pierre-André Weitz, his productions are marked by impressive settings in constant movement, plays of contrasts between the dark and neon lights, masks, naked bodies and a cabaret aesthetics. The director notes about the production: “I visualize a political but also metaphysical Wozzeck. It is a work which - I’ d dare say- looks like an ancient Greek tragedy, except it is not about a king, but speaks of a simple man who becomes an unhappy hero. Berg gave Buchner’s play – a play most notably political- a metaphysical dimension – turning Wozzeck into a kind of modern Christ”.

The opera will be conducted by Vassilis Christopoulos, one of the most important conductors of the younger generation, who has conducted with great success Strauss' Elektra -for the GNO official opening at the SNFCC premises in October 2017-, as well as Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk in May 2019.

Wozzeck by Berg, From (2020/2020), Directed by Olivier Py,, Conductor Vassilis Christopoulos, Stavros Niarchos Hall, Athens, Greece

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Ensemble

Programme, About & Synopsis

Videos

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Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues