Oresteia (Xenakis)

Did You Know?

• The choral sections are often described as chant-like with crude sounding yet complex instrumental interludes.
• The work is scored for a children's chorus and twelve instrumentalists.
• The music is often compared to Stravinski's The Rite of Spring and cited as ruggedly dissonant.

Plot

The opera opens at the end of the Trojan War with a chorus lamenting human fate. Cassandra recounts her rejection of Apollo, who punished her with foresight that no one would believe. She describes the murder of Agamemnon by his wife and her lover Aegisthus, and the chorus mourns his death. Agamemnon's son Orestes vows revenge, kills Aegisthus and his mother, and off-stage screams confirm his success. At Delphi, furies and the chorus condemn Orestes as a murderer requiring divine trial. Athena intervenes at the trial, redefining the court's purpose to right wrongs and persuading the furies to adopt a new role. A hymn celebrates the new bond between humans and gods.

Development

The bulk of the opera was finished in 1966 for a Greek Festival in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where its American premiere occurred on June 18, 1966, directed by Alexis Solomos. Xenakis later lengthened the work for the world stage, composing a cantata movement titled Kassandra in the mid-1980s. The lengthened opera premiered in Sicily, Italy on August 21, 1987, with conductors Michel Tabachnik and Dominique Debart. In 1992, Xenakis added La Déesse Athéna for an Athens production, one of his last vocal works. The composer never specified why he expanded the roles of Athena and Kassandra over more central characters like Orestes.