About Us

The Athens Festival, which has been held since 1955, traditionally gathers together the best artistic talents of Europe and Asia. Among the outstanding musicians who have appeared at the Festival are Dmitris Mitropoulos, Mstislav Rostropovich, Leonidas Kavakos, Dmitris Sgouros, Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti; and dancers — Rudolf Nureyev, Margot Fonteyn, Martha Graham, Alicia Alonso. Theatre directors Dmitrios Rondiris, Karolos Koun, Giorgio Strehler, Peter Hall have presented their productions at the Festival.
Performances take place at the ancient theatres — Odeon of Herodes Atticus and the theatres at Epidaurus, as well as at modern venues. In the Fedstival program are concerts and theatre productions (musical and dramatic), exhibitions, workshops and art seminars.
Taking part in this year’s Festival are: the La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Semyon Bychkov, Athens State Orchestra conducted by Vassilis Christopoulos, the London Sinfonietta Chamber Orchestra, the Arditti Quartet, violinist Joshua Bell, pianist Cyprien Katsaris. Greek National Opera is presenting Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, the Theatre des Champs-Elysees — Mozart’s Idomeneo, the Latinitas Nostra Baroque Ensemble — Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea. The high point of the Festival’s ballet program will be Mats Ek and William Forsythe ballets danced by Sylvie Guillem and Nicolas Le Riche. Le Cirque du Soleil is presenting a production by Ariane Mnouchkine, Warsaw’s New Theatre — a production by Kshishtof Varlikovsky, the Societas Raffaello Sanzio — a production by Romeo Castelucci.
This is not the first time the Bolshoi Theatre has appeared at the Festival — in 2005 it presented Macbeth produced by Eimuntas Nekrosius, and in 2008 — Alexander Sokurov’s Boris Godunov.
This time round it is sending Dmitri Tcherniakov’s much travelled Eugene Onegin to Greece. We remind you Tcherniakov’s Eugene Onegin was shown at the Riga Festival (June 2008), in Tokyo (June 2009), at London’s Royal Opera House (August 2010). It opened the season at the Paris Opera (September 2008), at the Teatro Real, Madrid (September 2010), and closed the season at La Scala (July 2009); it also closed the Ljubljana Festival (August 2009).


Tour Program
12, 14 July
Megaron Concert Hall
Eugene Onegin

Conductor — Vassily Sinaisky
Larina — Makvala Kasrashvili
Tatiana — Yekaterina Shcherbachenko
Olga — Margarita Mamsirova
Nurse — Irina Udalova
Eugene Onegin — Audun Iversen
Vladimir Lensky — Alexei Dolgov
Prince Gremin — Mikhail Kazakov
Zaretsky — Valery Gilmanov

13 July
Odeon of Herodes Atticus
Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra Concert

Sergei Rachmaninov. Concerto for piano with orchestra No. 3
Antonin Dvorak. Symphony No. 8

Conductor — Vassily Sinaisky
Soloist — Denis Matsuev (piano)