A Living Culture
Athens is one of the cultural capitals of Europe thanks to its ancient heritage. Great though it was to be taken to the Acropolis and Delphi twice a year at school while growing up there, my life in Athens has a very mixed and exotic cultural flavour, not just an ancient Greek one.
Of course, the huge 4th century theatre at Epidaurus remains one of the most fascinating venues for theatrical performances and it has been a privilege to enjoy Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, Aristophanes and so many more ancient Greek writers there.
The Herod of Attica Auditorium is a huge preserved amphitheatre right beneath the Acropolis, famed for its amazing acoustics. This is where more of the international cultural action takes place, with everything from dance performances from the New York legend Alvin Aley to the Moscow and the St Petersburg ballets. Greek stages have been blessed with new translations in the last couple of decades, which have made foreign drama easier to perform. Hundreds of theatres of all sizes hide in the heart of Athens, with performances ranging from The Sound of Music and Cabaret to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, A Streetcar Named Desire, andWaiting for Godot amongst others. Moreover, experimental theatre has been flourishing for the last few years, bringing to the Athenian audience interesting and groundbreaking new productions of classics like Alice and Hamlet.
On the music front, the Athens Music Palace is a renowned venue for classical and other music, regularly attended by international orchestras, operas and ballets. We have had the pleasure to enjoy artists like Sting, Elton John and the Rolling Stones who thought they'd stop by our little country on tour, and internationally acclaimed performers like Momix and Circe du Soleil.
Moreover, the Athens Art Gallery has housed exhibitions of Rembrandt, Picasso, Renoir, El Greco, Rubens and currently is lending its gorgeous space to Botticelli. Finally, on the big screen front, Theodoros Agelopoulos and Michalis Kakoyannis (who of course directed Trojan Women) started to export Greek cinema decades ago, and continue to do so. The new age Greek cinema is more involved, more socially aware, and has nothing to envy from European cinema in general. All in all, Athens is a unique place for performing arts and culture in general, by no means stuck to its amazing heritage but of course respecting it and honouring it constantly. Apart from hosting international artists, Athens is the hotspot for all Greek artistic production and a place where different styles and forms of art come together. Growing up in Athens has been a cultural journey to be appreciated.
6th May 2004