The Philippi Festival Travels to the Greek National Opera

Alternative Stage Founding Donor

Major Sponsor of the Greek National Opera

The GNO Alternative Stage is extending its partnership with the Municipal & Regional Theatre of Kavala for a second consecutive year, aiming to showcase contemporary artistic works and strengthen the connection between the periphery and the Athenian audience. Five productions from this year’s 69^th Philippi Festival – organized by the Municipal & Regional Theatre of Kavala and dedicated to the concept of transformation –will be showcased at the Alternative Stage. These performances will introduce audiences to original commissions that, for the first time, transcend the narrow confines of theatre and engage in dialogue with music, opera, shadow puppet theatre, and visual installations.

Heinrich von Kleist, The Earthquake in Chil
18, 19, 20 September 2026 • Starts at: 19.00 (18/9), 21.15 (19/9), 17.00 (20/9)

Concept, direction, texts, lighting design: Michalis Angelidis • Translation: Thodoris Daskarolis • Director: Dimitris Stavropoulos • Set & lighting designer: Vasilis Apostolatos • Music, sound designer: Dimos Vryzas • Costume designer: Alexanda-Anastasia Ftouli • Movement coach, assistant to the director: Loukia Konidari • Cast: Margarita Alexiadi, Anastasis Georgoulas, Erietta Manouri, Giorgos Fasoulas  

German author Heinrich von Kleist’s famous novella The Earthquake in Chile transports audiences to 1647 Santiago, where a disastrous event disrupts all social certainties. Emerging director Dimitris Stavropoulos assembles a new group of talented actors to tell us the story of a different shift/transformation.

Partition Walls or A Little Prayer at 3:46 a.m.

18, 19, 20 September 2026 • Starts at: 19.00 (19, 20/9), 21.15 (18/9)

Text: Eva-Oikonomou Vamvaka, with the company’s contribution • Director: Eva-Oikonomou Vamvaka• Set & lighting designer: Vasilis Apostolatos • Movement coach: Alexandros Stavropoulos • Costume designer: Ourania Frangea • Assistants to the director: Anna Filidou, Fotini Meletiadou • Cast: Babis Alefantis, Andreas Natsios, Danae-Arsenia Filidou• Music, Onstage musician: Sophie Lies

A war photographer, a young caregiver for the elderly, and a man who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time meet – or rather coexist – in a familiar urban landscape. They spend a sleepless night together, listening to their inner voices, which have lately seemed to dominate their minds. This nighttime journey will reveal aspects of themselves they are probably not ready to confront. When the dawn arrives, none of them will be the same any longer.

The Antigones

19, 20 September 2026 • Starts at: 18.00 (19/9), 15.00 (20/9)

Directors: Georgios Karakantzas, Samaneh Latifi• Illustrator: Kinga Kelemen • Musician: Ali Hout• Puppeteer Georgios Karakantzas • Actor: Samaneh Latifi • Collaborators: Efimia Karakantza (Professor of Ancient Greek), Eric Deniaud (Puppet maker)

The performance is based on the myth of Antigone, a central figure in Greek tragedy who defies Creon’s prohibition against burying her brother, Polynices, and pays the price with her own life –  a story that echoes across the centuries to this day.

On a deliberately minimal stage, the narration unfolds through a suitcase – a symbol of the refugees’ plight and memory – that transforms into a tiny theatre. There, the pieces of Antigone’s life are replayed using everyday objects, puppets, and cardboard figures. None of these objects is neutral: a scarf, a mirror, a lamp, or a figure – all participate in the making of a world of shadows and memories, where myth blends with personal experience.

Phaëton

20 September 2026 • Starts at: 21.15

Three-act opera, based on Jean-Baptiste Lully’s opera of the same name, with a libretto by Philippe Quinault.  

Co-production between the GNO Alternative Stage and the Municipal and Regional Theatre of Kavala

Concept, artistic curation: Rafi Music Theate Company (Anastasia Kotsali, Lito Messini) • Dramaturgy, musical adaptation, arrangement, live electronics: Vasiliki Legaki • Director: Sofia Antoniou • Poetic composition: Tonia Tzirita Zacharatou • Sets: Marilena Kalaitzantonaki • Costumes: Eleni Kavvada • Lighting design: Vasilis Apostolatos • Cast (in alphabetical order): Paris Dimatsas, Georgios Iatrou, Anastasia Kotsali, Lito Messini • Musicians: Kostas Giovanis (oboe), Eleftheria Togia (viola), Konstantinos Zigkeridis (bayan), Vasiliki Legaki (live electronics)

One of the most important works by the Italian-French Baroque composer Jean-Baptiste Lully, Phaëton, with a libretto by Philippe Quinault, has been adapted by the established composer and artistic director of the Process Festival, Vasiliki Legaki, engaging in a fertile conversation with the original. The cast includes the distinguished soloists Georgios Iatrou, Anastasia Kotsali, and Lito Messini, as well as the emerging baritone Paris Dimatsas in his debut leading role. The performance is directed by Sofia Antoniou, one of the most distinctive voices in theater of her generation, in her debut as an opera director.

The opera Phaëton is the latest fruit of a creative relationship developed over recent years by the two institutions – the Greek National Opera and the Municipal and Regional Theatre of Kavala – marking their first complete collaboration and co-production to result in a performance.

Visual and Sound Installation

Metamorphoses – And I never hunted again

Duration: 18 - 20/9

Concept, artistic curator: Michaela Pliaplia • Soundscapes: Nikos Sotirelis • With the participation of the Kavala Photography Club

Drawing inspiration from the myth of Actaeon in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, this visual installation explores the moment when the hunter shifts into the position of the prey. Through spatial interventions, soundscapes, and visual elements, the work reflects on the boundaries between the human and the non-human, setting in motion the mechanisms of transformation.