As promised, here is an update about our weekend trip to Corinth, Mycenae, and Nafplio.

Corinth

We left Katohi around 7 [...]]]> I’m pleased to say that we all made it successfully and safely back to the United States. We’ve actually been back for a couple weeks now, so this post is long overdue. Apologies!

As promised, here is an update about our weekend trip to Corinth, Mycenae, and Nafplio.

Corinth

We left Katohi around 7 AM on a Friday morning. Most people slept on the bus (myself included). On the way to Nafplio, we stopped by ancient Corinth for a couple hours and tromped around the ruins. Honestly, ancient Corinth isn’t very impressive to me. Sure, it’s a major attraction for many people because of its connection to the Apostle Paul, but as far as ruins go, there are much better places to visit in Greece.

Far more impressive to me are the ruins just outside the main “touristy” area of Corinth. Across the street from the entrance to ancient Corinth and just down a rocky hill are a number of unlabeled, unguarded ruins, including the ancient theatre! We spent less than an hour exploring the “paid” part of Corinth, and well over an hour scampering around the “unpaid” part. Please be sure to see the picture below of Adam and myself standing just above the ancient theatre.

There’s also an ancient fortress at the top of a mountain nearby (called “Acro-Corinth”), but we didn’t have time as a group to hike to the top. Since several members of our company wanted to brave the mountain, we organized a side trip the following week back to Corinth. Hiking to the top was a blast, especially since I’d been dying to do it since my last trip to Corinth in 2006.

Here’s a slideshow of pictures from Corinth. Click the “play” button to begin the show, and if you wish to download individual pictures, just click anything within the slideshow itself to see all the individual photos.

Nafplio

After our Corinthian excursion, we resumed the drive to Nafplio. After we checked into the Hotel Amalia (5-stars!), we relaxed, napped, and took luxurious showers (yay!) before heading into Nafplio for dinner. Dinner was amazingly expensive. Kat and I only ordered appetizers and a beer, yet the bill turned out close to 20 Euros (around $35). Ouch!

Of course, we could not resist the urge to gorge ourselves on Italian gelatto afterward, so like a herd of salivating zombies we marched in a group from dinner to the world-famous Italian gelateria. Yum! I think almost everyone in the company visited the gelateria at least once a day while in Nafplio.

SATURDAY: After a filling breakfast buffet at the hotel, we visited the old fortress in Nafplio. It’s difficult to describe how much I like running around this fortress. At every turn there are nooks, crannies, ledges, tunnels, towers, and other potentially-dangerous places to explore. It’s wonderful! The view from the fortress also provides some of the most breath-taking scenery I’ve ever seen.

Since the fortress is on top of a small mountain, we had two options for descending: take the bus down, or walk down 999 steps. Naturally, most of us opted for the steps despite advice against it from some local Greeks. They told us it would take at least half an hour to descend the steps. Bah! It only took us 15, and that included stopping to take pictures on the way down.

Here’s a slideshow of assorted pictures from Nafplio.

Mycenae

SUNDAY: After breakfast, we drove out to the ruins of Mycenae. This was the famed city in which Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Aegithus, Electra, and Orestes lived. The ruins of the city are impressive enough, but the massive tombs are unbelievable! Supposedly, the gigantic tombs are for Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, and Aegithus, but no one really knows for sure. We spent close to two hours exploring the ruins, including singing inside the hollow, conical “Treasury of Atreus” (tomb of Agamemnon). Very nice! Very resonant!

Most people went to the beach on Sunday afternoon, but Kat and I opted to stay at the hotel. I’m glad we did because I somehow managed to take a 4-hour nap! For some reason, I didn’t sleep much the first night we were here, so I was grateful for the chance to catch up on some lost sleep.

Sunday dinner was on our own in Nafplio again. After that first expensive meal, we wanted to avoid fancy restaurants, so we found a place that sold gyros and ate our fill, (followed of course) by one last batch of gelatto.

And finally, here is a collection of photos from Mycenae. Enjoy!

It was a unique cultural experience for me to sit in the midst of the Greek audience during the performance. To [...]]]> It is now early August, and our time in Greece is rapidly coming to a close. I’m pleased to report that our performance of “Agamemnon” at the Oiniades Theatre Festival was a success.

It was a unique cultural experience for me to sit in the midst of the Greek audience during the performance. To get an idea of what I mean, first take everything that you know about audience etiquette at theatrical or musical performances in the United States and throw it out the window. At the beginning of the performance, the audience quieted while the musicians tuned, but shortly thereafter, the commotion began. People talked and gossiped, kids ran around, camera bulbs flashed, cigarettes went ablaze, and cell phones rang constantly. Like in America, people fumbled for their mobile phones when they rang, but for a completely different purpose. Instead of silencing the phones, people ANSWERED them and carried on conversations right in the theatre! There was often more activity happening in the audience than on-stage!

As I said, it’s a unique cultural experience. Aside from the mobile phone aspect, this must be how audiences in 17th and 18th century Italian opera houses behaved! Despite the general commotion, once something of importance starts happening on-stage, the audience snaps to attention. For instance, when the handmaids brought out the purple cloth for Agamemnon entrance to the palace, you could have heard a pin drop. In short, I learned that you must EARN the audience’s attention here – it is not granted by default.

We were afraid that attendance to our performance would be lax due to the language barrier (our show is in both English and Greek), but we were wrong. I have no official head count, but the mayor of the city estimated that roughly 500 people attended. Not bad at all.

I took no pictures during the actual performance, but here is a huge gallery of pictures from tech week, including the final dress rehearsal.

After-Party

After the show, we tore down the set and raced back to Katohi to change clothes for our dinner with the mayor. Dinner started around midnight, and we ate outdoors in the town square. I thought it a feast fit for a king – they brought out platter after platter of delicacies, and we ate “community” style by passing plates to one another. All in all, we feasted until 3 AM. Wow. It was a memorable experience.

My next post will cover our adventures in Corinth, Mycenae, and Nafplio. Stay tuned!

Music

First of all, the music for “Agamemnon” is completely finished. Since we left for [...]]]> Greetings from Greece! It’s been about a month since we left the USA, and much has happened. Rather than try to recount all our activities in a single entry, I’m going to break it up into more manageable posts.

Music

First of all, the music for “Agamemnon” is completely finished. Since we left for Athens in June, I’ve composed roughly 25 minutes of music for the show, scored for clarinet, viola, percussion, and chorus (plus soloists). Whenever and wherever I had an opportunity, I wrote, often completing an entire piece a day! I remember sketching a few tunes on the plane, and I even wrote an arietta for Clytemnestra while sitting at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.

We have one week until we perform “Agamemnon” as part of the Oiniades Theatre Festival, and I’ve been busy rehearsing the chorus for the last month. Our performance is on Sunday, July 27, and we will also have at least one performance back at the University of Kansas in late August. Unlike last time, when I played the role of Dionysus in “The Bacchae” (Euripides), I actually get to sit in the audience and watch the production. What a treat! I like to joke that I should just start enthusiastically singing along with the chorus during the performance, pretending that all the tunes are well-known, popular tunes. That should confuse the Greek audience pretty thoroughly!

Athens

Before I get carried away talking about the production, allow me to switch gears and document our travels a bit. Getting to Athens from Kansas took a LONG time. Once we claimed our luggage, we jumped on the metro headed for the hotel. See the picture in the gallery below of myself, Kat, and Dennis Christilles (the director) on the metro looking very tired and greasy after our long series of flights. Dennis is so tired, his eyes are closed!

I also included a few obligatory pictures of the Acropolis.

This is my third stay in Athens (counting the previous two visits from 2006), and honestly, it’s one of the scarier cities I’ve ever visited. Our hotel (on Menander street) was a fairly-nice hotel in a disturbingly-bad neighborhood. Every night we saw hundreds of angry-looking Middle-Eastern immigrants swarming in the streets outside the hotel, blocking all traffic. The women in our group were advised not to leave the hotel in the evening without a “man-shield.” Unbelievable.

Fortunately, none of us ran into any trouble, and we got to enjoy our time trekking around the city.

Since this is an outing of mostly theatre people, we were naturally fascinated by the Theatre of Dionysus, just down the hill from the Acropolis. Also see in the gallery above a photo of our entire group in all of our exhausted glory. Keep in mind that our Acropolis tour was mere hours after we stepped off the plane in Athens.

Katohi

After a few days exploring the attractions in Athens, we boarded a bus headed for the village of Katohi, our “home away from home.” Katohi literally means “The Occupation”, and while practicing our Greek in the Athens hotel, we alarmed the desk attendant by telling him we were traveling to “Katohi.” Having never heard of such a small village, he thought at first that part of his nation must be undergoing a hostile takeover. Given Greece’s history, I can’t blame him (they were swallowed up by the Ottoman Empire for about 400 years). Katohi itself actually was occupied by the Germans for part of the 20th century, hence the name.

Anyway, we safely made it to the tiny farming village of Katohi. Since life moves at such a slow pace here, not much has changed in the last two years, with the exception that there are now TWO Internet cafes instead of one. The empty elementary school where we reside is just as I remember it. One main difference is that we actually have glorious air conditioning in two rooms, which makes living in a school during the Mediterranean summer much more tolerable.

On the day we arrived, many people turned out to meet us, many of whom I had met on the previous trip. We exchanged Greek kisses (both cheeks), and one young woman actually started singing some of the pieces I wrote for the show last time. It was a nice feeling. I appear to be some sort of mini-celebrity in the village – many people remember me as Dionysus from “The Bacchae.”

Living in an elementary school is not the most luxurious of settings, but the local residents tried very hard to make us welcome. They cleaned the school thoroughly and set up beds for us. I just try to think of it as glorified camping.

Just outside the village of Katohi is the ancient Oiniades theatre. For us, it’s a profound and humbling experience to perform in a place where music and theatre were performed thousands of years ago. We’ve only been out to the theatre twice so far, but beginning next week we will rehearse there every afternoon and evening. Here are a few pictures of our humble abode, plus the Oiniades theatre. Just look at that view!

The first time we visited the theatre, a local news reporter met with Dennis and myself and asked us questions about our production of “Agamemnon.” She documented all of our responses, making a special note that I composed all the music right here in Katohi. I haven’t seen the magazine article for which the interview was intended yet, but a local friend of mine joked with me that I’m going to be famous in Greece after the publication. Yeah, right!

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for coming updates (and pictures) about Delphi, Corinth, Iannina, Mycenae, and Nafplio!

Below is a slideshow of pictures I have taken this month. It includes pictures of: