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Press Releases

Alexander the Great. Rock opera (18/09/2014)

 «Alexander the Great. Rock opera»
The journey of the NTNG from Thessaloniki
to the rest of the world begins
with a glorious extravaganza of music and theatre!
 
A big premiere will take place at the Royal (Vassiliko) Theatre, on October 23, 2014. It’s the music and theatre production “Alexander the Great. Rock Opera,” by Konstantinos Athyridis, with which the National Theatre of Northern Greece attempts for the first time to address to international audiences and the Greek Diaspora, through a world tour.

After the premiere, three more performances (October 23–26) will be given (plus two more for vulnerable population groups with free admission), while more shows will be programmed for the Athens Concert Hall in February 2015.
 
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Last summer I watched a rock opera about the life of Alexander the Great. I was deeply impressed by the concept and the amazing music. Maybe it’s the first time that a Greek author deals with such an ambitious idea, in a performance with exceptional perspectives. The critical reception and the comments by the press were highly appraising. That was the beginning of my idea to try to set the venture of new performance through the National Theatre of Northern Greece. There is no doubt! With the support of such a great institution, like the NTNG, with the new libretto and this well-rounded production –in terms of aesthetics and technical support–, we will have a very promising suggestion in our hands, with all the elements that contribute in its elevation to a world success.” Those were the remarks by Giannis Vouros, the NTNG artistic director, who is also the stage director of the performance, along with Konstantinos Athyridis.

The play is presented in the English language with supertitles. Its duration is approximately two hours and 15 minutes and it is realized with the contribution of a 10-member orchestra and a group of 30 actors, dancers and singers.

The story, as it is presented in this two-hour music and theatre show, begins in Samothrace, one year before Alexander’s birth, where his mother Olympias and his father Philippos, King of Macedonia, met for the first time, during the Bacchic mysteries, and it is concluded in the death of Alexander the Great in Babylon, 33 years later. However, who was really the man that changed history and affected the culture of millions of people? How much do we really know about his life?

The opera aims at bringing us closer to the energy, the dream and the human nature of Alexander the Great, through modern sound and music.
 
PRESIDENT’S NOTE
«…εις τα της ψυχής σημεία μάλλον ενδύεσθαι… εάσαντος ετέροις τα μεγέθη και τους αγώνας» [treat the marks and indications of the souls of men... and let weighty matters and great battles to be treated of by others].
Plutarch, Alexander 1

 
The international “Alexander the Great” tour is not a great idea or a daring project.  It is a careful step forward, attempted for the first time in the history of the NTNG. Forward and beyond borders, in Europe and the world, at a time characterised by dangerous introversion. 
 
It is wholesome proof of the great endeavour of the NTNG for a change of the mindset in the operation of a public cultural organisation.
 
It is the need of the NTNG to dare and move beyond the safety of our national borders. It is the understanding of its role and responsibility to address itself to Greek expatriates and to the international audience.  With a high standard rock opera, written in English, and with original theme. On the personality of a Greek who united for the first time the known world of the time, a personality presented through the facts of his life and mainly those that had a crucial role in shaping his character and his choices, such as his relationship with his parents, his teachers, his friends, his soldiers, his enemies, with destiny and death.  We wanted to penetrate deeper in the characteristics of his soul, leaving aside the grandeur and the battles for others to explore, as Plutarch writes.
 
It is the dream of an alliance of creative forces to show that Thessaloniki can artistically serve an actual cultural world, lost in the twilight of the past. To show that the crisis that torments the country and our society can also create great things. 
 
It is the voice of a Greece that everyday worries, struggles, dreams, creates. As Elytis, our Nobel laureate had uniquely put it, “Try decompose Greece, and what you'll get in the end will be an olive tree, a vine and a boat. And this means: it only takes as much to build it new”. Besides, this is how Greece had always been.  In its greatest hardships it created the best things. 
With our olive tree being the National Theatre and its historical dynamics, with our vine, sweet and intoxicating, being the fantastic rock opera “Alexander the Great”, we get on board on the boat to travel art and our own country beyond the tight embrace of our borders, where the Greek civilisation had always travelled.  
 
I believe that the Greeks of the Diaspora and international audiences will embrace “Alexander the Great” and this effort of the National Theatre of Northern Greece. 
 
Meni Lisaridou
President of the Board of Directors of the NTNG
 
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CONTRIBUTORS
MUSIC:  CONSTANTINE ATHIRIDES
LYRICS: ALEXANDRA CHARANIS
DIRECTION: GIANNIS VOUROS, CONSTANTINE ATHIRIDES
SETS:  YANNIS METZIKOF  
COSTUMES:  IOANNA TIMOTHEADOU
CHOREOGRAPHY: ASPA FOUTSI
LIGHTING DESIGN: LEFTERIS PAVLOPOULOS
HISTORICAL EDITING:  POLIXENI ADAM VELENI
LIGHTING DESIGN: LEFTERIS PAVLOPOULOS
HISTORICAL EDITING:  POLIXENI ADAM VELENI
ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR: KOSTAS TZOUNIS
TRANSLATION: GEORGIA VELIVASAKI
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS: ASPA FOUTSI, DELINA VASSILIADI
ASSISTANT OF SETS AND COSTUMES: IRIS TSAGALIDOY
PRODUCTION: ILIAS KOTOPOULOS, VICKY ALEXAKI
STAGE MANAGER:  VICKY ALEXAKI

CAST
DIMITRIS TIKTOPOULOS ALEXANDER
THOMAS VLIAGOFTIS
HARIKLIA HATSISAVVIDOU
GEORGIA VELIVASAKI
THODORIS VOUTSIKAKIS
ROULA MANISANOU
NIKIAS FONTARAS
DIMITRIS TSILINIKOS
GIORGOS FOKAS
NTINOS PSYCHOGIOS
APOLLON DRIKOUDIS
CHARIS DOULKAS
VANESA FOTAKIDOU
ASTERIS PELTEKIS
DIMITRIS KIANIDIS
NIKOS NIKOLAIDIS
KONSTANTINOS MYLONAS
ARSENIOS GAVRIILIDIS
NIKOS KAPELIOS
CHRISA IOANNIDOU
ELISAVET - MARIA KOTINI
ARETI VALAVANOPOULOU
NONIKA MALKOUTZI
PANOS ZOIS
RHIANNON MORGAN
ANASTASIA KOSTOPOULOU
MELINA NTIPRE
STAVRIANA PAPADAKI

 
THE BAND
VAFIDIS NIKOLAOS
VLAHOPOULOS GIANNIS
YEREMJES IASSON
ZIAKAS ANDREAS
KARAGIANNAKIDIS DIAMANDIS
LAPPAS DIMITRIS
PIPERKOS MIHALIS
TZOUNIS KOSTAS
FILKAS FIVOS
 
The performance “Alexander the Great” is made possible under the auspices of:
  • Ministry of Culture and Sport
  • Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace
  • Helexpo-Thessaloniki International Fair
  • Greek National Tourism Office
  • Hellenic-Australian Business Council
  • Hellenic National Commission for UNESCO (and the Commissions of the countries where more shows will be programmed)
 
With the support of:
Alexander the Great International Institution
 
The ticket presale has already begun at the NTNG box offices.
Ticket prices:

OPERA BOXES: €100
ORCHESTRA: €50
REAR ORCHESTRA: €30
BALCONY: €20

When you buy one ticket for the performance “Alexander the Great. Rock opera,” you give the opportunity to one fellow citizen needing assistance to attend, as two more shows will be performed with FREE ADMISSION for the disabled, the unemployed, and for students also* on October 29 & 30.

INFORMATION-RESERVATIONS: +30 2315 200 200

 
Media Sponsors
NERIT, PROTO PROGRAMA, TRITO PROGRAMA, KOSMOS NERIT , NOVA CINEMA, NOVA LIFE, TV100, FM100, MAKEDONIA TV, RADIO THESSALONIKI 94,5, EROTIKOS 94,8, KOSMORADIO 95,1, FOCUS FM 103,6 REAL NEWS, REAL FM 107,1, REAL.GR, MAKEDONIA, MAKEDONIA THS KYRIAKHS, EPILOGES.GR, AGELIOFOROS, AGELIOFOROS THS KYRIAKHS, AGELIOFOROS.GR, MEDIASOUP.GR., ONLYTHEATER.GR, PROTAGON.GR, PARALLAXIMAG.GR, IN2LIFE.GR CULTURENOW.GR, MONOPOLI.GR, THESTIVAL.GR, UR.GR,
  GLOW, SOUL, EXOSTISPRESS.GR, BISCOTTO, BISCOTTO.GR, IQ MAGAZINE, MYCAMPUS.GR, FILM NOUAR, AYLAIA , OS 3.GR, TΗΕSSALONIKICITYGUIDE.GR, INFOKIDS,GR, PAROYSIAZW.GR,

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