The composer’s words: When writing the booklet of my opera, in
order to describe the pure, grand nature of Alexander the Great’s personality,
I sought the works of antiquity. Inaccessible, invisible – Alexander was
everywhere, seeking his Homer, never satisfied by the writers who tried to
approach him. The magnitude of his life was underestimated in Plutarch and
Arian; it was idealized by the more contemporary philosophers - distant - as
Droyzen.
I sought the happy
medium and found the most luminous destiny of all humanity, that of a demigod.
Because Alexander did not only carry Hellenic Civilization to the borders of
the world; he was the cradle him even, and its star, among those of his/her
father king Philippe, of the Demosthenes orator, the Aristotle philosopher,
shines of a single glare in the sky of the History. By discovering the life of
Alexander, one can only be upset by the force and the will relentless of his
mother Olympias who was like the obscure face of the star. The High Priestess
Olympias has the dark and diabolic beauty of a personality of extreme ritual
cruelty, of a divine monster. As much one remains in a dumbfounded stupor in
front of the colossal and grotesque Olympias, as much one is seized amazement
in front of the dream of Alexander the Great, his dream eternal, always
current: fraternity, love, dignity, beauty, humanism and before any heroism. To
describe the events binding Alexander his superhuman destiny has, I employed
Wagnerian formulas by their leitmotifs melody reason. In addition, I used
dissonant harmonies based on an arithmetisation Pythagorian to return the
intellectuality of the Hellenistic Era founded by Alexander the Great. The epic
atmosphere of the work is based on a dark lyricism.
Alexander lived as a
permanent nightmare the event tragedies of the war, which it carried out to
reach his supreme goal…
History of the opera: The world premiere of
Alexander the Great was in Montreal Canada the 20 October 2007 and the composer
Panayoti Karousos gets a half hour standing ovation from the audience. Canadian
dramatic mezzo Sophie Laganiere did
an amazing work to the titanic role of Queen Olympias. Donald Lavergne as
Alexander the Great gave all his emotion.
The opera represented
in May 2008 in Chicago Illinois USA with the American Symphony Orchestra of
Chicago under maestro David Stech with big success. Critics acclaimed Karousos’s Alexander the Great as the
greatest artistic achievement ever made for Greece's greatest hero and from far
history’s biggest conqueror.
The opera made an American tour presentations. In 2009 the
extraordinary opera performed by the Astoria Symphony Orchestra and
soloists conducted majestically by conductor Grant Gilman in New York,
followed by a presentation in North Carolina
Theatre with East Coast Philharmonic and soloists under the direction of Grant
Gilman, and in Toronto at P.C. Ho Theater Cultural Center of Toronto with the
Sneak Peak Symphony Orchestra of Toronto University and soloists under the
direction of maestro Victor Cheng, and the composer
Panagiotis Karousos was referred to as the Verdi of Greek community
of North America. In 2009 the opera presented in Buenos Aires (Sala Borges de
la Biblioteca Nacional de Argentina) with soloists from the opera Teatro Colón.
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