The Bacchae overwhelm the Teatro dell'Efebo: Agrigento rediscovers its myth

Success for the opening of the season of the Teatro Classico. Euripides' work enchants audiences and critics. Now the challenge of Cyprus

AGRIGENTO – An archaic, yet very current tragedy. A rigorous and visionary staging. A theater carved into the stone that becomes a temple of scenic ritual. With The Bacchae by Euripides, Agrigento inaugurated the 2025 season of Classical and Mythic Theater , delivering to the public a high-profile evening, capable of blending classicism and contemporary research.

The direction is by Daniele Salvo , also the protagonist on stage, who restores the tragedy to its ritual and sacred soul, without giving up a symbolic and profoundly current reading. The production is signed by Michele Di Dio and supported by the Libero Consorzio Comunale di Agrigento , which has courageously chosen to entrust the opening of the season to a complex and stratified work. A successful bet.

The audience – numerous and involved – enthusiastically welcomed the staging hosted in the tuff quarry of the Teatro dell'Efebo , a natural stage of extraordinary charm, which amplified the emotional impact of the performance. The voices of the Bacchae , with vocal care by Dr. Marco Podda , were able to convey the sacred tension of the Dionysian cult, in a perfect balance between word, gesture and music.

The female chorus , the true beating heart of the tragedy, offered moments of rare intensity. The choreographic movements, full of meaning, gave body to the Dionysian chaos, evoking the irrational force that runs through Euripides' text. Not a simple reenactment of the myth, but an immersion in a universe where order clashes with madness, and the divine takes the form of a creative disorder.

" Where is Dionysus hiding today? " the show seems to ask. And in asking this question, The Bacchae mirrors an era that has lost contact with the sacred and its ambiguity.

A round of applause goes to the director Achille Contino and to the president Giuseppe Pendolino , who wanted to relaunch the cultural identity of the territory with a project of international scope. " We are extremely satisfied with the response of the public - declared Pendolino - and with the very high level of the representation. We want the Teatro dell'Efebo to become a point of reference for the entire provincial territory. This is a land that deserves to be told with the language of beauty ".

Symbolic recognition also came from Europe , with the free patronage of the European Commission for the 2025 season, made official right at the beginning of the evening.

Next stop: Cyprus , where the show will represent Italy at the International Festival of Ancient Greek Drama . An important occasion for Agrigento and its theater, which from an archaeological stage is increasingly becoming a cultural laboratory of the Mediterranean.

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