ANTIGONE

a one-act ballet to music by Theodore Antoniou, Arvo Pärt,  Mikis Theodorakis, Giovanni Sollima, Nikos Scalkottas, Frederic Chopin

Choreography Ludovic Party /France/
Scenography Todor Demerov
Costumes Mariya Hristova

Soloists – Aneliya Dimitrova, Frederico Pinto
Soldiers – Ivaylo Yanev, Joseph Wright, Kaito Takahashi
Ballet of the Stara Zagora State Opera

with the special participation of Svetla Todorova, an actress from the Drama Theater “Geo Milev” – Stara Zagora

The plot is based on the ancient myth. Brothers Eteocles and Polynices were killed in a battle for the throne of Thebes. The present king, Creon, issues a decree for the body of Polynices, guilty of treason, to be left unburied, a prey to jackals and vultures. However, Antigone, sister of the dead and fiancee of Creon’s son, disobeys the order and pays for this with her life.

Choreographer Ludovic Party uses motifs from the play by Jean Anouilh. In his staging interpretation, he focuses on the conflict between Antigone and Creon. Antigone fights in the name of those unwritten laws, which require that she should bury her brother in order to express her tribute to the dead. She overthrows the discrimination, to which her brother Polynices was subject, and challenges the conflict between the cause of the heart and the rules of the state. Antigone, rewritten by Anouilh, is a new personage, she is disturbed and discontented.  Creon relentlessly destroys all the reasons, which make her stubborn in her rebellious intentions.

Thus, the spectacle reaches ultimate generalizations, which make the audience consider that in the contemporary world each order needs a critical view and testing of its moral grounding.

Duration; 40 minutes without an interval

Premiere: 27 July 2019 – Antique Forum “Augusta Traiana”