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Translation by Nicola Crocetti
Concept and Direction: Alessandro Machìa
Set Design: Katia Tolo
Costume Design: Sara Bianchi
Hair and Make-up: Giorgio Bertinelli
Assistant Director: Nicole Mastroianni
Photography and Graphic Design: Manuela Giusto
Curated by Associazione Culturale Aletheia Teatro
Artistic Director: Carla Guido
Free admission, subject to available seating.
In Ritsos' interpretation of AGAMENNONE, the King of Mycenae is no longer the mighty ruler who led the Greek expedition against Troy, but an ageing man who has finally returned home after a long and exhausting war. Haunted by memory, responsibility and loss, he confronts his own fragility and the weight of a lifetime shaped by violence.
No longer the heroic king of Homeric tradition, Agamemnon is portrayed as an elderly man transformed by war, capable of one final act of courage: telling his own version of events to his wife, Clytemnestra.
As though Cassandra had already revealed the fate awaiting him, Agamemnon retraces the ten years that led him back to Mycenae, not in an attempt to escape his destiny, but to bear witness to the few genuine victories he achieved over himself—the greatest of which is the painful recognition of his own vanity.
Rather than resisting his fate, he confronts his failures, reaching a profound awareness of the futility of human ambition. His dialogue with Clytemnestra gradually becomes an intimate confession, shaped by remorse, memory and loss.
Within her presence emerge two other women whose lives profoundly marked his own: Iphigenia, the daughter sacrificed to secure favourable winds for the voyage to Troy, and Cassandra, daughter of King Priam, brought to Mycenae as a captive after the war. These figures merge into a single symbolic presence, embodying memory, guilt and destiny with extraordinary emotional depth.
Where Aeschylus leaves the events within the palace unseen, Ritsos invites the audience inside, allowing Agamemnon to tell his own story—that of a sensitive and profoundly vulnerable man, forever changed by a war in which he witnessed, and committed, every imaginable act.
Despite everything, his awareness of human frailty and the futility of violence lends the character an almost sacred dimension. His compassion becomes so profound that he is capable of noticing the struggles of even an ant, recognising within them a tragic reflection of his own existence.
AGAMENNONE forms part of MITIKA – Teatro e Mito nella contemporaneità, the theatrical strand of Armonie in Scena, comprising three productions of remarkable emotional and symbolic intensity, curated by Associazione Culturale Aletheia Teatro under the artistic direction of Carla Guido.
Together with Dedalo e Icaro, oltre il volo and Circe: le origini, the production completes a programme that restores the enduring relevance of classical mythology, transforming its protagonists into powerful instruments through which to explore the contemporary condition. Daedalus and Icarus, Agamemnon and Circe transcend time to confront enduring tensions between the individual and society, destiny and choice, vulnerability and redemption.
The performance forms part of the programme of Armonie del Mediterraneo – Viaggi, Miti e Ritorni, conceived and promoted by the Euro-Mediterranean Cultural Heritage Agency, in collaboration with the Municipality of Lecce, with the support of the Italian Ministry of Tourism through the National Tourism Fund (FUNT) – 2025 Current Expenditure Programme (Project Code CUP F89I25002020001).
