Rodinos

Lead GNO & Tour Supporter

The Greek National Opera presents the music theatre performance featuring elements of documentary theatre, Rodinos, which will tour Crete, as part of “The GNO Travels Across Greece programme”. The production captures moments from the life of legendary lyre player Andreas Rodinos, based on true events, with dramaturgy, research, and direction by Giannis Bletas.

Rodinos took his first steps in music at a very young age, guided by experienced lyre players Nikistratos and Piskopis. From 1925 onwards, he adapted and used pentozali and syrto tunes from Crete to create pure melodies. He found inspiration in the blue of the Cretan sea, the scent of flowers, orange moons, and the passions and pain he carried within his soul. The young Rodinos fell in love and transformed his pain into music. At just 22 years old, illness struck; he died alone in nature’s embrace, holding his two lyres in his arms. His brief yet dramatic life turned him into a legendary figure in Cretan music. His art had a profound impact on subsequent generations of lyre players.

As the director notes: “He says that there was no other hand that could string the lyre and smell like summer; that he wandered through villages collecting tunes: lullabies for toddlers, dirges and sorrowful melodies about grief and joys, and vendettas for romances. He breathed life into them.

He says that he was not afraid to stand at the crossroads at midnight, enter the carved circle with his lyre in hand and a black-handled knife, and play to draw charisma from nocturnal creatures. He says that it was for a blue-eyed, blonde woman who was several years older than him that death entered him and began to wither him from within.

He says that his life ended among the trees on the mountain, and that notes travelled, full of bitterness, in the holy sea like prayers. His bowing, filled with pain and grief, echoed from the darkness to Rethemnos: he says his name was RODINOS.”