GNO Alternative Stage: Artistic programme 2024/25

The Greek National Opera Alternative Stage announces its multi-faceted artistic programme for the season 2024/25, featuring numerous opera and music theatre productions, revivals of successful shows that captivated audiences and critics, a musical for the whole family, puppet theatre, concerts, as well as two unique festivals dedicated to baroque music and percussion instruments. Notable creators and performers from the fields of opera, music theatre, theatre, music and puppetry comprise a programme that combines high aesthetic aspirations with the targeting of a broad audience, mobilising both domestic and international artistic forces to serve the unbiased and inclusive vision that has characterised the profile of Greece’s most restless contemporary music theatre scene from its inception. The Founding Donor to the Alternative Stage of the GNO and its long-standing supporter is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) [www.SNF.org].

The programme for the 2024/25 artistic season includes two important international co-productions, made possible by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) to enhance the Greek National Opera’s artistic outreach. In co-production with the Centro de Experimentación of the esteemed Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Greek premiere of the chamber opera Kassandra will be presented, in a libretto by the Uruguayan playwright Sergio Blanco and music by the distinguished Argentine composer Pablo Ortiz. The production is directed by Diana Theocharidis and Alexandros Efklidis, with transgender soprano Maria Castillo de Lima in the lead role. Another national premiere, Mythos, an exciting extravaganza full of images, puppets and music by the master of the genre Yiorgos Karakantzas, will be presented in co-production with the French company Anima Théâtre.

GNO Alternative Stage demonstrates consistent and comprehensive commitment to the cultivation and promotion of contemporary Greek music theatre works, which is well known and unprecedented at an institutional level. This season’s “harvest” of modern Greek creation at the Alternative Stage is represented by four productions:

– Co-produced with the National Theatre of Greece and featuring music by Nikos Kypourgos and Theo Abazis, the ambitious production Mataroa on the Horizon brings to life the story of the legendary ship “Mataroa”, which carried Greek intellectuals to France after World War II, through the directorial vision of Theo Abazis and with a large cast of distinguished actors. The book and lyrics are written by Elsa Andrianou, utilising original research by Elita Kounadi.

– A new contemporary opera production, The Dead Man and the Resurrection, commissioned to the acclaimed composer Nicolas Tzortzis, based on the novel of the same title by Nikos Gavriil Pentzikis and staged by the prolific director Anastasia Koumidou.

– The music theatre performance Madre Salonico, in a libretto by Leon A. Nar and directed by Victor Arditti, which constitutes a gesture of memory full of Sephardic songs in Ladino, the native language of the Jews of Thessaloniki, arranged by Martha Mavroidi.

– The new production for children of the GNO Alternative Stage for the 2024/25 season: the imaginative musical for the whole family Isadora Duck, written and directed by Stella Michailidou with music by Kostas Vomvolos.

The Alternative Stage’s unique sensitivity for Greek music theatre is not limited, however, to contemporary creation, but also embraces historic Greek music theatre repertoire, highlighting not only its retro, “nostalgic” dimension but also its interactions with the sensibility of today. The legendary operetta I Want to See the Pope! by Theophrastos Sakellaridis, written more than a century ago, comes to challenge the Athenian audience again in a new, ambitious production conducted by Nicolas Vassiliou and directed by Natasha Triantafylli, with a stellar cast of opera performers.

Three successful productions are revived in 24/25. The Loser, based on the novel of the same title by distinguished Austrian author Thomas Bernhard, returns to the Alternative Stage, adapted and directed by Ektoras Lygizos, and the contemporary opera The Fall of the House of Commons, inspired by the dark universe of Edgar Allan Poe, is presented, after its successful staging at the Athens Epidaurus Festival, composed by Orestis Papaioannou, conceived and written by Alekos Lountzis, conducted by Michalis Papapetrou and directed for the stage by Alexandros Efklidis.

The concert programme also includes a tribute to the multifaceted work of the renowned Greek composer Yannis Constantinidis / Kostas Giannidis on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of his death through four concert programmes curated by Lambros Liavas, a musical portrait of the pioneering gay black American composer Julius Eastman by the piano duo P42 (Piano for two) of Beata Pincetic and Christos Sakellaridis and the talented soprano Afroditi Patoulidou’s recital My Bloody Valentine, dedicated to all the lonely souls who every year are forced to endure the exhilaration of Valentine’s Day. In addition, Grammy and Emmy award-winning pianist Gloria Cheng and acclaimed Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat present a unique concert-tribute to the centenary of Pierre Boulez’s birth.

Lastly, the programme is graced with two unique festivals that have captivated Athenian music lovers: The Baroque Music Festival, curated by Dimos Goudaroulis, returns to the GNO Alternative Stage and the historic hall of the Parnassos Literary Society, featuring four separate concerts under the title The Age of Experiments. The second GNO Alternative Stage Percussion Festival, curated by Marinos Tranoudakis, returns in the summer of 2025 to draw the audience into a grand, colourful and frenetic celebration through a series of activities ranging from special workshops and seminars to unique concerts with prominent ensembles and soloists.

GNO Alternative Stage programme curator: Alexandros Efklidis

The ticket pre-sale for the first four-month period of the GNO Alternative Stage 2024/25 season (September – December 2024) will begin on 30 July 2024 at the GNO Box Office and ticketservices.gr

Alternative Stage founding donor