The Greek National Opera will present Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo for the first time in its history, in a new production directed by visual artist William Kentridge and orchestrated for modern instruments by Nico Muhly.
Orfeo is a major international co-production between the Greek National Opera, Britain's Glyndebourne Festival and New York's Metropolitan Opera. It opens the Greek National Opera's 2026/27 season on October 30, conducted by Konstantinos Terzakis.
The production was first staged last June at the Glyndebourne Festival, where it received a particularly warm reception from audiences and critics. The Guardian wrote of Kentridge's "explosive creativity," saying his directorial and visual approach brings Monteverdi's music to life. The Observer described the visual language as rich, bold, confrontational and obsessive, adding that the artist was never likely to settle for a secondary role and instead engages fully with Monteverdi's masterpiece.
A Landmark in Opera History
Monteverdi's Orfeo premiered in 1607 in Mantua and is regarded as a landmark in music history, marking the birth of opera as a complete dramatic art form. Although it is not technically the first opera ever written, it holds a prominent place in Western music history, sitting at the meeting point of the late Renaissance and early Baroque.
Working from Alessandro Striggio's libretto, Monteverdi created a work in which text, music and action are bound into a single expressive system, combining structural simplicity with unprecedented expressive density. Through recitatives, arias, choruses and orchestral passages, he built a musical universe in which words and music serve the story with singular immediacy. The famous aria "Possente spirto," a high point of the opera, captures the power of music as a means of persuasion and emotion while showcasing the lead singer's technical and expressive skill.
The Myth of Orpheus
At the heart of the opera is the myth of Orpheus, in which love, loss and the power of art meet death. The story opens on the plains of Thrace amid celebration, as Orpheus and Eurydice marry surrounded by nymphs and shepherds, until news of Eurydice's sudden death turns the festivities into mourning. Refusing to accept the loss, Orpheus descends into Hades to win her back from the world of the dead.
At the gates of the underworld, music becomes his only weapon: his singing lulls the ferryman Charon to sleep and persuades the underworld's deities to release Eurydice. Pluto, lord of the underworld, finally agrees, but on one condition: Orpheus must not look back until he has returned to the world of the living. Overwhelmed by doubt, fear and anguish, he glances back at Eurydice just before completing the journey and loses her forever. Back in Thrace, he sinks into despair until Apollo appears and calls him to rise above his earthly grief and ascend with him to the heavens.
The production engages with both of the opera's traditional endings, in which Orpheus is either torn apart by the Bacchae or ascends to the heavens with Apollo. Kentridge keeps both versions alive on stage at once, creating a paradoxical coexistence of descent and ascent that turns the ending into a further meditation on death, loss and immortality.
A Story About the Power of Art
Kentridge treats Orfeo as more than a tale of loss and love, focusing on its central theme: the power of art. Orpheus becomes the archetypal artist, attempting to transcend human limits through his music, the only weapon he has against death. The opera itself opens with the allegorical figure of Music personifying the art that drives the entire drama, a relationship between music, image and creative power that sits at the center of Kentridge's staging, which treats the opera as a work open to new readings.
The myth becomes the starting point for a layered visual world where memory, creation, loss and time coexist, built through live action, drawing, moving image, video projection and set design in constant motion. Kentridge draws heavily on Rainer Maria Rilke's poetic version of the myth, shifting the action to around 1910 so that the ancient story meets more recent history. Kentridge has said one of the most interesting elements of directing Orfeo is the openness that Monteverdi's music allows, both in the schematic structure of its scenes and in the non-naturalism of the libretto and the opera as a whole.
Kentridge's signature charcoal-drawing technique shapes the production's dramaturgy: drawings appear before the audience, are altered, erased and transformed into new images, echoing Orpheus's own desire to reverse time. Just as a drawing cannot return to its original blank page, Orpheus cannot undo his loss, and the past remains alive even once an image has been erased. Kentridge has described the essence of the work as the fear of death, the inevitability of death, and the total desire to undo a disaster that has already happened.
Who Is William Kentridge
Born in 1955 in Johannesburg, Kentridge is recognized worldwide as one of the most significant and versatile contemporary visual artists, with a major presence in film and video work as well as opera and theatre. He studied political science and African studies at the University of Witwatersrand, attended the Johannesburg Art Foundation, and studied theatre at the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris. His method combines drawing, writing, film, performance, music and theatre in works shaped by politics, science, literature and history.
He gained international recognition in the 1990s with his Drawings for Projection series, animated films made by drawing, erasing and redrawing in charcoal, which address apartheid, colonialism, memory and complicity. He has directed acclaimed opera productions including Mozart's The Magic Flute and Berg's Wozzeck and Lulu, staged at the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala in Milan, English National Opera and the Salzburg Festival, among others. His work has been shown at MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Centre Pompidou, the Whitechapel Gallery, Tate Modern, the Royal Academy in London and the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, and has featured at Documenta and the Venice Biennale, with major retrospectives at SFMOMA, MoMA and the Albertina.
Creative Team and Cast
The set, designed by Sabine Theunissen, transforms the stage into an artist's workshop where real objects such as ladders, chairs, desks, notebooks, papers and megaphones sit alongside projections of Kentridge's drawings. Choreography by Gregory Maqoma adds a further layer to the multimedia staging, with movement used as a mode of storytelling rather than decoration. The creative team also includes Greta Goiris on costumes, Urs Schönebaum on lighting and Janus Fouché on video.
The Greek National Opera Orchestra is conducted by rising conductor Konstantinos Terzakis in his seventh collaboration with the company, following the operas La Bohème and Carmen, a concert presentation of Flora mirabilis, the ballets Coppélia and Carmen, and the 2025 International Opera Awards ceremony. The Greek National Opera Chorus has been prepared by Agathangelos Georgakatos.
The orchestration for modern instruments is by American composer and orchestrator Nico Muhly. It premiered at Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico in 2023 under conductor Harry Bicket and will also be used for the Metropolitan Opera presentation of the production. Muhly's output ranges from orchestral and stage music to chamber and sacred music, and he has received commissions from the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and other leading musical institutions.
Tenor Christos Kechris sings the title role. He has performed numerous roles at the Greek National Opera since 2009, most recently in Viva la mamma! at the company's Alternative Stage. Soprano Maria Kostraki sings Music and Eurydice, having appeared in operas and concerts at venues including the Munich Chamber Opera, the Nuremberg State Opera and the Spoleto Festival. Mezzo-soprano Mary-Ellen Nesi sings the Messenger, having performed more than forty leading roles at major opera houses across Europe, the Americas and Asia, including the demanding title role in I Fonissa (The Murderess) at the Greek National Opera. Bass Petros Magoulas sings Pluto, returning to the company after playing Henry VIII in Anna Bolena in the 2025/26 season. Tenor Yiannis Kalyvas, familiar to Greek National Opera audiences from major productions, sings the First Shepherd and Spirit.
Performance Dates and Tickets
Orfeo runs October 30 and November 1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14, 2026, at the Stavros Niarchos Hall of the Greek National Opera at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. Performances begin at 19:30, except on Sunday, November 1 (18:30) and November 8 (20:00).
Ticket prices range from 15 to 100 euros, with student and children's tickets at 15 euros and restricted-view seats at 10 euros. Tickets are available through the Greek National Opera box office at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center and at ticketservices.gr.
