Haris Alexiou, Dimitra Stogianni and Zacharias Karounis narrate Romanos the Melodist
Nicosia For Art – the production team behind the Nicosia International Festival – presents the Greek-language premiere of a performance of words and music based on the work of Saint Romanos the Melodist. Directed by Zacharias Karounis and staged on 7 and 8 April exclusively at the Nicosia Municipal Theatre, the performance recounts the events of Holy Week, from the entry into Jerusalem to the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, in seven scenes and six new musical compositions by Thomas Konstantinou.
At the music-theatre lectern, Haris Alexiou, Dimitra Stogianni and Zacharias Karounis perform selected passages from the verses of Romanos, in a poetic rendering into modern Greek, in the form of dramatised dialogues and narrations. Actors and musicians become the instruments of Romanos’s thought, presenting the eternal struggle of the human mind and free will to express itself… to choose between light and darkness.
The narrations alternate with original instrumental compositions, accompanied by a five-piece ensemble, pre-recorded soundscapes and visual projections.
Romanos
“I feel the need to bring those we love close to our own sensibility. From Byzantium I chose Romanos the Melodist.” This is how Odysseas Elytis described the influence Romanos had on his work.
For the Nobel laureate poet, “few of us, very few, even today, have realised that the scroll which the Virgin Mary gave him one night to swallow, as the synaxaria tell us, made him worthy of grafting from the trunk of ancient Hellenism onto that of medieval Hellenism a particular mode of expression that has come down intact to our own day.”
The Translation
The poetic rendering of the texts of Romanos into modern Greek for the first time, by Fr Ananias Koustenis (1945–2021), is an event of exceptional significance both for Greece and for the world’s spiritual heritage. For it does not merely make Romanos’s poetic masterpiece linguistically accessible to our age; it succeeds in living its meanings so deeply that the original and the translation become almost one.
As Fr Ananias Koustenis writes so tellingly in his preface: “Romanos is a revelation. Across the centuries he has ‘intoxicated’ many. A great master of the word and a Saint of God. A man of love and humility. As we read his verses, we truly feel that he takes us by the hand and, very gently and tenderly, leads us where he wishes. And we rejoice and give ourselves up to him. And we gather unspoilt joys, and little by little our life changes.”
Credits
Narration: Haris Alexiou, Dimitra Stogianni, Zacharias Karounis
Direction – theatrical adaptation – performance of hymns: Zacharias Karounis
Poetic rendering into Modern Greek: Archimandrite Ananias Koustenis
Selection and editing of texts: Dimitra Stogianni, Thomas Konstantinou
Original music, orchestration, music design: Thomas Konstantinou
String arrangements: Yannis Plagiannakos, Thomas Konstantinou
Musicians:
Oud: Thomas Konstantinou
Kanonaki: Stefanos Dorbarakis
Cello: Despina Spanou
Double bass: Yannis Plagiannakos
Percussion and soundscapes: Manousos Klapakis
Lighting and projection design: Dimitris Koutas
Projection editing: Zacharias Karounis
Video animation, graphic design: Thanos Kosmidis
Sound design: Giorgos Frangelis, Nikolas Prokopiou
Academic advisers: Dimitra Angelopoulou, Zoi Liaka
Costume designer: Evelina Darzenta
Artistic production supervision: Thomas Konstantinou
Executive production: ETHOS Non-Profit Company
Production: Nicosia For Art, Nicosia International Festival
Suitable for ages: 14+
Duration: 70 min
Tickets:
From the Soldout Tickets website: bit.ly/NIF24_tickets, Stephanis stores and the Nicosia Municipal Theatre box office (Monday – Friday 10:00–13:00).
Ticket prices:
ZONE A: €36/ €32
ZONE B: €32/ €28
ZONE C: €28/ €24
ZONE D: €24/€20
Reduced tickets: children, pupils, soldiers, students, pensioners, members of large families, actors, people with disabilities (free) on presentation of relevant ID.
Information: 22797979 (Monday – Friday 10:00–13:00) &
bit.ly/Website_NIF2024
Festival Profile
Organisers: Municipality of Nicosia, Nicosia For Art
Media sponsors: DIAS Publishing House, DIESI 101.1, KATHIMERINI
