The Oresteia in the arts and popular culture
Encyclopedia
Reflections of the Oresteia in the arts and popular culture show the influence of the classic trilogy of tragedies by Aeschylus
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Aeschylus
Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
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Opera, ballet and incidental music
- Several composers have written musical treatments of all or part of Aeschylus's trilogy. From the late 19th century comes Sergey Taneyev's full-length opera OresteiaOresteia (opera)Oresteia is an opera in three parts, eight tableaux, with music by Sergei Taneyev, composed during 1887-1894. The composer titled this work, his only opera, a "musical trilogy." The Russian libretto was adapted by A.A. Wenkstern from the The Oresteia of Aeschylus. The opera was premiered on at...
. In the 20th century Soviet composer Yury Alexandrovich Falik composed a one-act ballet Oresteia; Darius MilhaudDarius MilhaudDarius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...
supplied incidental music for the plays, the Vienese composer Ernst KrenekErnst KrenekErnst Krenek was an Austrian of Czech origin and, from 1945, American composer. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including Music Here and Now , a study of Johannes Ockeghem , and Horizons Circled: Reflections on my Music...
wrote Leben des OrestLeben des OrestLeben des Orest is a grand opera in five acts with words and music both by Ernst Krenek. It is his opus 60 and the first of his own libretti with an antique setting. The score is inscribed with the dates of composition: August 8, 1928 – May 13, 1929, and includes indications of recommended cuts...
(The Life of Orestes) (1929), and Iannis XenakisIannis XenakisIannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...
wrote at least three works for voices and instruments based on the trilogy. There is a one-act opera Il furore di Oreste by Flavio Testi (from The Libation Bearers) and "Prologue", by Harrison BirtwistleHarrison BirtwistleSir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...
(from Agamemnon), for tenorTenorThe tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
and chamber ensemble. Mozart's opera IdomeneoIdomeneoIdomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712...
features ElectraElectraIn Greek mythology, Electra was an Argive princess and daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra. She and her brother Orestes plotted revenge against their mother Clytemnestra and stepfather Aegisthus for the murder of their father Agamemnon...
as a major character. Elektra (opera)Elektra (opera)Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal...
is a one-act opera by Richard StraussRichard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, first performed at the Dresden State Opera on January 25, 1909. Choreographer Martha Graham created the evening-length dance drama Clytemnestra, in 1958, giving the Oresteia a feminist spin. In this version, the murdered queen recalls the events of the trilogy from her point of view, and is absolved of dishonor.
Cinema
- The Italian poet and filmmaker Pier Paolo PasoliniPier Paolo PasoliniPier Paolo Pasolini was an Italian film director, poet, writer, and intellectual. Pasolini distinguished himself as a poet, journalist, philosopher, linguist, novelist, playwright, filmmaker, newspaper and magazine columnist, actor, painter and political figure...
planned to make a version of the trilogy, set in an unnamed African colony. His goal was to use the Oresteia to comment on the emergence of democracy in Africa; however, during a research expedition captured in the documentary Notes Towards an African OrestesNotes Towards an African OrestesNotes Towards an African Orestes is a 1970 Italian film by director Pier Paolo Pasolini about Pasolini's preparations for making a film version of the Oresteia set in Africa....
(1975), a group of African students objected to the project on the grounds that an ancient European text would have little to say about modern African history and that Pasolini was treating Africa as a single entity and not as a continent of diverse, complex cultures. Pasolini abandoned the project. - A version of Oresteia, set in modern Greece, is presented in 1975 film The Travelling PlayersThe Travelling PlayersThe Travelling Players is a 1975 Greek film directed by Theo Angelopoulos that traces the history of mid-20th century Greece from 1939 to 1952.-Plot:...
by Theo AngelopoulosTheo AngelopoulosTheodoros Angelopoulos is a Greek filmmaker, screenwriter and film producer.-Life:Angelopoulos studied law at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, but after his military service went to Paris to attend the Sorbonne. He soon dropped out to study film at the IDHEC before returning...
. Chrysothemis is an important figure here apart from Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, Agamemnon and Pylades. She was invented by Sophocles as Electra's sister and does not appear in Aeschylus where Iphigeneia is sacrificed. Angelopoulos represents through this tragedy the history of 20th century Greece, the political turmoils, widespread political violence, fratricide through civil war and foreign intervention. - The Spaghetti westernSpaghetti WesternSpaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...
Il Pistolero dell'Ave Maria, also known as The Forgotten Pistolero, is based on the myth and set in Mexico following the Second Mexican EmpireSecond Mexican EmpireThe Second Mexican Empire was the name of Mexico under the regime established from 1864 to 1867. It was created by Napoleon III of France, who attempted to use the Mexican adventure to recapture some of the grandeur of earlier Napoleonic times...
. Ferdinando BaldiFerdinando BaldiFerdinando Baldi was an Italian film director, film producer and screenwriter. He was born on 19 May 1927 in Cava dei Tirreni, in the Province of Salerno.-Career:...
, who directed the film, was also a professor of classical literature who specialized in Greek tragedy.
Stage works
- English playwright Stephen Berkoff wrote an adaption of Agamemnon in 1977.
- Irish playwright Marina CarrMarina CarrMarina Carr is an Irish playwright.Born in Tullamore, County Offaly, Carr attended University College Dublin before holding posts as writer-in-residence at the Abbey Theatre and Trinity College Dublin. She served as Heimbold Professor of Irish Studies at Villanova University in 2003...
loosely borrows the plot of the first two parts of the Oresteia in her 2002 play, Ariel, which is set in the contemporary Irish midlands. - French playwright and philosopher Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
closely based his play The FliesThe FliesThe Flies is a play by Jean-Paul Sartre, written in 1943. It is an adaptation of the Electra myth, previously used by the Greek playwrights Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides....
(French: Les Mouches) on the Oresteia. He tellingly recreates the intense persecution of Orestes by the Furies, but the reactions of Orestes are transformed by Sartre's existentialist philosophy mixed with material highly suggestive of rebellion. This undoubtedly because it was written during the Nazi occupation of France. - American playwright Eugene O'NeillEugene O'NeillEugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
based Mourning Becomes ElectraMourning Becomes ElectraMourning Becomes Electra is a play cycle written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on 26 October 1931 where it ran for 150 performances before closing in March 1932...
on the Oresteia. It is likewise composed of three plays, with themes corresponding to Aeschylus' trilogy. It takes place at the end of the American Civil WarAmerican Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
as opposed to the Trojan War. - South African theater artist Yael Farber based her piece Molora (Ashes) on the Orestia. She set its themes within the context of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings of South AfricaSouth AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
in the demise of apartheid. Molora was originally produced at the Market TheatreMarket TheatreThe Market Theatre, based in the vibrant inner-city suburb of Newtown in Johannesburg, South Africa, was opened in 1976, operating as an independent, non-racial theatre during the country’s apartheid regime...
in Johannesburg. - American deaf director Ethan Sinnott creates the first deaf translation of the Oresteia's Agamemnon in 2008. This play was designed specifically for deaf actors to perform for deaf audiences, but also provided captioning for hearing audience members, and makes use of the strong visual-based storytelling of the trilogy of the Oresteia.
- Northwestern UniversityNorthwestern UniversityNorthwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
theater group Sit & Spin Productions produced a show in May 2008 called Memory Furies, which used video projection to combine elements from the 1959 French New Wave film Hiroshima Mon AmourHiroshima Mon AmourHiroshima mon amour is an acclaimed 1959 drama film directed by French film director Alain Resnais, with a screenplay by Marguerite Duras. It is the documentation of an intensely personal conversation between a French-Japanese couple about memory and forgetfulness...
with the Oresteia. - Action To The Word Theatre Company performed Alexandra Spencer-Jones' second world war-time reworking of AgamemnonAgamemnonIn Greek mythology, Agamemnon was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Electra and Orestes. Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area...
at Camden People's Theatre, London in October 2010 directed by Alexandra Spencer-Jones - Action To The Word Theatre Company performed Alexandra Spencer-Jones' 1953 reworking of AgamemnonAgamemnonIn Greek mythology, Agamemnon was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Electra and Orestes. Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area...
at St Giles In The Field in May 2011directed by Alexandra Spencer-Jones
Fiction
- The Furies metaphorically plague the character Lily Bart in Edith Wharton's The House of MirthThe House of MirthThe House of Mirth , is a novel by Edith Wharton. First published in 1905, the novel is Wharton's first important work of fiction, sold 140,000 copies between October and the end of December, and added to Wharton's existing fortune....
and the character Gwendolyn Harleth in George Eliot's Daniel DerondaDaniel DerondaDaniel Deronda is a novel by George Eliot, first published in 1876. It was the last novel she completed and the only one set in the contemporary Victorian society of her day... - Franco-American novelist Jonathan LittellJonathan LittellJonathan Littell is a bilingual writer living in Barcelona. He grew up in France and United States and is a dual citizen of both countries. After acquiring his bachelor degree he worked for a humanitarian organisation for nine years, leaving his job in 2001 in order to concentrate on writing...
draws on The Eumenides in his 2006 novel The Kindly OnesThe Kindly OnesThe Kindly Ones is a euphemistic reference to the Furies in Greek mythology.The phrase has been used as the title of:...
. - American novelist Joyce Carol OatesJoyce Carol OatesJoyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction...
took elements of the story and adapted them to the modern day upper-class enclaves of Washington DC in her 1981 novel Angel of Light. - British author J. K. RowlingJ. K. RowlingJoanne "Jo" Rowling, OBE , better known as J. K. Rowling, is the British author of the Harry Potter fantasy series...
cites a passage from The Libation Bearers in the preface of the seventh and final Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. - In writing his novel Watership DownWatership DownWatership Down is a classic heroic fantasy novel, written by English author Richard Adams, about a small group of rabbits. Although the animals in the story live in their natural environment, they are anthropomorphised, possessing their own culture, language , proverbs, poetry, and mythology...
, Richard Adams based both the concept and role of Fiver's character on Cassandra and the role she plays in the first part of the Oresteia. The connection is most evident in the book's first chapter (which is headed by an epigraph from the play), in which Fiver has a vision of his birthplace drenched in blood, echoing Cassandra's doom-laden prophecies which are not seen for what they truly are. - Galician author Álvaro CunqueiroÁlvaro CunqueiroÁlvaro Cunqueiro Mora was an Galician writer. He is the author of many works in both Galician and Spanish, including Merlín e familia...
rewrote the story with major changes to the plot (including the ending) in his 1969 novel Un hombre que se parecía a Orestes (A man who looked like Orestes). - American Author Philip K. Dick was influenced by the Oresteia in creating the premise behind the short story Minority Report
- American Author Thomas Berger retold the story in his 1990 novel Orrie's Story, setting it in small town America at the close of the Second World War.
- Neil GaimanNeil GaimanNeil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
's influential graphic novel Sandman, among many other mythical and classical allusions, includes a major storyline called "The Kindly Ones" roughly based on The Eumenides (which name "the kindly ones" is a direct translation of.)
Poetry
- Poet Robinson JeffersRobinson JeffersJohn Robinson Jeffers was an American poet, known for his work about the central California coast. Most of Jeffers' poetry was written in classic narrative and epic form, but today he is also known for his short verse, and considered an icon of the environmental movement.-Life:Jeffers was born in...
's The Tower Beyond Tragedy is a modern, verse version of the Oresteia including references to the World Wars. - Poet T. S. EliotT. S. EliotThomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
's play The Family ReunionThe Family ReunionThe Family Reunion is a play by T. S. Eliot. Written mostly in blank verse, it incorporates elements from Greek drama and mid-twentieth-century detective plays to portray the hero's journey from guilt to redemption. The play was unsuccessful when first presented in 1939, and was later regarded as...
is based on The Eumenides. - Poet Sylvia PlathSylvia PlathSylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...
's poem The Colossus alludes to the blue sky of the Oresteia.
Popular song
- Popular singer Monica RichardsMonica RichardsMonica Richards is a singer, songwriter, artist and writer from the United States. A graduate of the American University with honors in literature and a minor in anthropology, she is considered to be an icon of the goth subculture and has been the frontwoman of numerous bands including Madhouse,...
of Faith and the MuseFaith and the MuseFaith and the Muse is an American, underground gothic/darkwave band composed of two musicians, Monica Richards and William Faith. They are well regarded in the gothic music scene as innovators and icons. Their music encompasses many genres, from folk-style songs to darker compositions. Richards is...
has based work in the play. Specifically, "The Chorus of the Furies" which appears on the album Evidence of HeavenEvidence of HeavenEvidence of Heaven is the third studio album by Faith and the Muse.-Track listing:-Credits:*All instruments and voices performed by William Faith and Monica Richards...
by Faith and the Muse references this story. - Maynard James KeenanMaynard James KeenanMaynard James Keenan is an American rock singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, winemaker, and actor. Originally from Ohio, Keenan spent his high school and college years in Michigan. After serving in the Army in the early 1980s, he attended Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids...
of A Perfect CircleA Perfect CircleA Perfect Circle is an American rock supergroup formed in 1999 by guitarist Billy Howerdel and Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan. The original incarnation of the band also included Paz Lenchantin on bass, Troy Van Leeuwen on guitar, and Tim Alexander on drums...
, in their first album, Mer de Noms, includes a track titled "Orestes." The lyrics written by Maynard are quite desciptive and easily recognizable as referring to the ancient fable; the chorus states "[I've] got to cut away, clear away, snip away and sever this umbilicalUmbilical cordIn placental mammals, the umbilical cord is the connecting cord from the developing embryo or fetus to the placenta...
residue [that's] keeping me from killing you." - Virgin SteeleVirgin SteeleVirgin Steele is a heavy metal band from New York, originally formed in 1981.The band released a few career highlights albums...
based two concept albumConcept albumIn music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...
s on the Oresteia.
Visual arts
- Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a CrucifixionThree Studies for Figures at the Base of a CrucifixionThree Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion is a 1944 triptych painted by the Irish-born artist Francis Bacon. The work is based on the Eumenides—or Furies—of Aeschylus' The Oresteia, and depicts three writhing anthropomorphic creatures set against a flat burnt orange background...
, a 1944 triptych painted by artist Francis BaconFrancis BaconFrancis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
, is based on the Eumenides—or Furies.