Mikis Theodorakis: The Metamorphoses of Dionysus - An Opera In Two Acts [2CD]

opis:
Dziennik 01/2006 - ocena: * * * * *
'...Mikis Theodorakis znany jest z tysięcy piosenek, wybitnej muzyki filmowej (np. 'Grek Zorba'), ale też poważnej twórczości kompozytorskiej. Jest autorem siedmiu symfonii, tyluż kantat i oratoriów oraz pięciu oper. Do pierwszej opery 'Metamorfozy Dionizosa' stworzył też libretto, opierając się na symbolicznej poezji Kostasa Karyotakisa i Kostasa Varnalisa. Całość jest gorzką s=atyrą na współczesność. Kompozytor zawsze szukał oryginalnego języka muzycznego. Tutaj zastosował fakturę quasi-antyczną z elementami greckiego folkloru. Cieszy liczny udział polskich wykonawców w tym niemieckim wydawnictwie...'
autor: Krzesimir Dębski

Editor's info:
'The Metamorphoses of Dionysus', Mikis Theodorakis's first opera,
from 1985 - it was followed in 1990 by 'Medea', in 1993 by 'Elektra', in 1996 by 'Antigone', and in 2001 by 'Lysistrata' - is based on a free variation and an individual reading of Greek history. It is at once a parable of the excesses and suggestive effects of power, but also of the relationship between art and politics.

It centers around the suicide of the civil servant and poet Kostas Karyotakis, whose poems Theodorakis set for the opera. The libretto, by Theodorakis himself, incorporates various texts by Karyotakis and two fragments from the poem 'The Good People' by Kostas Varnalis (1884-1974).

The opera begins and ends with the suicide of the poet Kostas Karyotakis, whose poems are presented as arias in the opera, running through the entire work. They are framed with texts by Theodorakis, producing a collage of verses of poetry and his own texts, of melodic and grotesque passages, that becomes the opera's essential structuring feature: the contrast between the arias, the set 'tragic' poems by Karyotakis, and the musical farces, the music to Theodorakis's 'sarcastic' texts.

ekathimerini.com
Mikis Theodorakis's opera «The Metamorphoses of Dionysus» is, without doubt, the most moving - on a primal and aesthetic level - and the most sarcastic of the composer's works. It is also his most political. The German record label Intuition recently released a double CD of the opera, in collaboration with Kulturradio. Listed as opus AST 271, the opera has been orchestrated in chamber music form by Henning Schmiedt and was performed with great skill and energy by the Orchestra di Musica Difficile of Gdansk in 1999, with foreign soloists and musicians conducted by the composer himself. The production is by Asteris Koutoulas. The new release of «The Metamorphoses of Dionysus» further enhances the ever-growing international discography of Theodorakis's operas and symphonies. Last year, for example, another German label released a double CD of Theodorakis Seventh Symphony along with symphonies by Anton Bruckner. «The Metamorphoses of Dionysus» is the first opera Theodorakis penned. Written in the mid-1980s, it was originally titled «Karyotakis,» after the late 19th and early 20th century Greek poet Costas Karyotakis who took his own life in 1928. The libretto, which essentially focuses on the modernist poet's suicide and addresses the collapse of a public system of ethics, was written by the composer. He based it on verses of Karyotakis's poetry and included lyrics written by Costas Varnalis.
By Giorgos Malouchos