AGAMEMNON

In the organizer's words:

AGAMEMNON
by Aeschylus

German by Walter Jens

Premiere 08. December 2023

Aeschylus' king Agamemnon returns home as a triumphant hero after a ten-year battle against Troy, unaware that only the hatred and desire for revenge of his wife Clytemnestra await him. She cannot forgive him for having sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia in order to ask the gods for favorable winds for his war fleet on the way to Troy. Clytemnestra has had to wait ten years
had to wait ten years to be able to avenge the murder of her daughter. For her intention, she believes not only her right as a mother, but also the gods on her side. In her furor, however, she does not want to recognize that she, too, is only part of that curse which demands another for every act of blood and which has always weighed down on the Atridians. Or in other words: with her revenge on Agamemnon, Clytemnestra also seals
Clytemnestra also seals the fate of her other two children, Electra and Orest.

2500 years ago, Aeschylus wrote "Agamemnon" as the prelude to his trilogy of tragedies, the "Oresteia". In it, he describes the deadly cycle of violence and counter-violence as the cause of war, suffering and ruin, and shows how this cycle can be broken. For this reason, the "Oresteia" is rightly considered a great plea for democracy and peace to this day.

"Agamemnon" is part of the Residenztheater's examination of the myth of the "Oresteia," which also includes Jean-Paul Sartre's radical exaggeration of the material in "The Flies" at the beginning of the season and Robert Borgmann's music-theatrical installation "Athena."
Director and stage designer Ulrich Rasche, celebrated for his visually stunning and musical productions, has created Aeschylus' "Agamemnon" for the ancient amphitheater in Epidaurus, which holds nearly ten thousand spectators, in July 2022 as part of a co-production between the Residenztheater and the Athens Epidaurus Festival. In his production, Rasche exposes the cruel, ever self-propelling spiral of violence that underlies both the Atride curse and the Trojan War, and impressively shows the grist of this fatal machinery.

Artistic direction

Production and stage Ulrich Rasche
Composition and musical direction Nico van Wersch
Costumes Romy Springsguth
Chorus direction Jürgen Lehmann
Lighting Gerrit Jurda
Dramaturgy Michael Billenkamp

Price information:

from 8€ for students