THE The most anticipated blockbuster of 2026? The Odyssey by Christopher Nolan, with Matt Damon/Ulysses and Anne Hathaway/Penelope. An announced bestseller? Nobody sings my name (Piemme), inspired by the Trojan War, by that Yann Martel who with Life of Pi it sold 12 million copies. It opens at the Borghese Gallery in Rome on June 23rd the rich exhibition Metamorphosis. Ovid and the arts, and Ovid (played by Francesco Colella) is among the protagonists of the comedy THEthe god of lovewith Vinicio Marchioni and Vanessa Scalera.
But how much we love the classics
Also on stage we try our hand at rewriting the classics in a contemporary key: the company of the Gordi with the episode of Philèmon and Bàuci (again Ovid’s Metamorphoses) in Visitsseen at Franco Parenti of Milan (and from May 13th away to London); Igor Esposito with theOresteia by Aeschylus in Radio Argo Suite, just applauded at Small. And again, what did Piccolo choose if not Sophocles’ heroine for the school dissemination project “Theatre holds the table”? Antigone in the chair Davide Carnevali’s reduction is called.
We stop (the list could continue) and delve into the reasons for this (re)flourishing starting from the most popular place: the over one hundred year old Inda (National Institute of Ancient Drama) in Syracuse. And by Filippo Dini, who with Alcestis by Euripide inaugurates the new season (8 May-28 June), which will be followed by Robert Carsen with AntigoneÀlex Ollè with The Persians by Aeschylus, Giuliano Peparini with the revisitation of the Iliad.
The director Filippo Dini, 53 years old, inaugurates the 61st Season of the Greek Theater of Syracuse on May 8th with Euripides’ Alcestis.
«Almost 4000 spectators per evening (and 30 thousand under the age of 23 out of the total, ed.) they sit on the steps to watch the performance of texts from 2500 years ago. There is no apparent justification according to current marketing standards” underlines Filippo Dini, the director and artistic director of the Teatro Stabile del Veneto, as well as a TV face (“Sometimes in Padua they stop me on the street: “Are you the magistrate from the Rocco Schiavone series? What are you doing here?” he jokes). «I believe there is a profound, ancestral call, a “necessity”: there we find the origins of Western thought. The era we are going through exacerbates the need. In the great Greek authors we look more for the fundamental questions to ask ourselves than for the answers.”
What can you tell us about yours? Alcestis, the queen of Thessaly who sacrifices herself to save her husband Admetus? «I wanted contemporary scenography and costumes: I would like her story to be looked at through the eyes of a woman of today». How many would sacrifice themselves for their husband? «That’s not the focus. She then returns from the underworld. Totally transformed and silent: he has seen the horror, the desperation, and is able to reread the worldhis wedding. The husband who does not want to die is not far from the powerful of the earth who do not intend to give in an inch and are ready to sacrifice thousands of people in war. For me this satirical drama (there are various comic ideas, yes) it is the celebration of an extraordinary woman. As well as, as highlighted by the philosopher and Greek scholar Carlo Diano, a meditation on death. Indeed: the first meditation on the death of the Western vision.”
Lella Costa in Lysistrata by Aristophanes, directed by Serena Sinigaglia.
The Trojans make you think of Trump and Putin
«War is something we have returned to deal with in homes and Lysistrata, the enterprising Athenian who involves the Spartans in a sex strike to put an end to the Peloponnesian conflict, she is the perfect prototype of a pacifist heroine” intervenes Lella Costa who has been touring Aristophanes’ text for a year (and will continue for another). «Without considering that the playwright also talks about gender violence and states – among other things – that a man worthy of the name cannot enjoy if the woman does not enjoy. I’ve been listening to the classics for a while (Traviata, Hamlet, Othello in a monologue). Any story has already been told and possible plots already explored: if you have something to say and someone has already said it beautifully before, better to work on what is there, providing a new point of view. It seems more honest and smarter to me.”
Amazons by Silvia Gribaudi will debut in Turin on May 5th.
The secret of the classics? «Having already asked the right questions then. And, as Eduardo Galeano argued, “It’s better to focus on the questions, because when we thought we had the answers, they changed the questions” (he smiles). There’s a crazy line from Hecuba in The Trojan Women. When the city is destroyed and the Achaeans throw Astyanax from the walls, his nephew, the son of Hector and Andromache, addresses them: “You, whose pride is more in weapons than in brains“I would like someone to remind Trump, Putin, all of them. The protagonists of the classics seem like your traveling companions, they look like you and, however, they surprise you.”
The Amazons, victorious because they are free
Not even the choreographers escape the call. On August 8 the duo Danae & Dyonisios will present Dragon-Hymn of Decadence, a tribute to the culture of Ancient Greece in the Orsolina28 Open Air Stage (the international center for the promotion of dance founded by the former dancer Simony Monteiro ten years ago in Moncalvo, Asti). Silvia Gribaudi, on the other hand, is ready to debut with Amazons, from May 5th at Torinodanza Extra.
«The time has come to overturn the vision of the female body on stage, with its grace: the gesture is not poetic, it is a political act and these mythological warriors – subversive compared to male powerwith an irrepressible vital energy – they are perfect for this purpose. We need to fear women a little more, right?” smiles the associated artist of the Teatro Stabile of Turin, who in her creations prefers non-stereotypical physicality and investigates the concept of “beauty”. «The five performers do not hold weapons: they are already victorious because they are free. Even Wonder Woman (the protagonist of William Moulton Marston’s comics, ed.) was inspired by them.”
The most radical: Women in parliament
«The Amazons – Hippolyta, Antiope, Penthesilea – represent a kind of nightmare for the Greek imagination: matriarchy. Something unthinkable in a structure that limited the role of women to the oikos, to the hearth. Athenian democracy was a perfect example of phallocracy: all the same yes, as long as they are male. In other areas of Greece (Sparta, or Macedonia) the female situation was very different” explains Professor Giulio Guidorizzi, former author of The gods and heroes of the Greeks (Raffaello Cortina), which has now been published by Rizzoli, Women of Greece. Female voices of myth speaking in the present.
But what are they talking about? «Let’s take Medea: she kills her children in retaliation for Jason, who betrayed her. Unfortunately, doesn’t the news continue to report cases of infanticide? To the eternal theme of jealousy is added that of social discrimination: the princess comes from Colchis, she is a foreigner in Corinth. And isn’t the farewell of Hector and Andromache repeated every day in lands devastated by conflict?”. Then there is Lysistrataan example of female empowerment. «But he is much more radical than Aristophanes Women in parliament: having seized command, the Athenians instituted a form of communism which even concerned sexual relations.”