Synopses & Reviews
Aeschylus' Agamemnon, the first play in the Oresteia trilogy, is one of the most influential theatrical texts in the global canon. In performance, translation, adaptation, along with sung and danced interpretations, it has been familiar in the Greek world and the Roman empire, and from the Renaissance to the contemporary stage. It has been central to the aesthetic and intellectual avant-garde as well as to radical politics of all complexions and to feminist thinking. Contributors to this interdisciplinary collection of eighteen essays on its performance history include classical scholars, theatre historians, and experts in English and comparative literature. All Greek and Latin has been translated; the book is generously illustrated, and supplemented with the useful research aid of a chronological appendix of performances.
About the Author
Fiona Macintosh is Senior Research Fellow at the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, University of Oxford.
Pantelis Michelakis is Lecturer in Classics, University of Bristol, and Honorary Fellow, Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, University of Oxford.
Edith Hall is Leverhulme Professor of Greek Cultural History at the University of Durham, and Co-Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, University of Oxford.
Oliver Taplin is Professor of Classical Languages and Literature at the University of Oxford, and Fellow of the British Academy.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1. Agamemnons in performance, Pantelis Michelakis
I. In Search of the Sources
2. `Agamemnon' for the ancients, Pat Easterling
3. `Striking too short at Greeks': the transmission of `Agamemnon' to the English Renaissance stage, Inga-Stina Ewbank
4. Clytemnestra versus her Senecan tradition, Edith Hall
5. Clytemnestra's ghost: the Aeschylean legacy in Gluck's Iphigenia operas, Susanna Phillipo
II. The Move to Modernity
6. `Agamemnons influence in Germany: Goethe, Schiller, and Wagner, Michael Ewans
7. Agamemnon: speaking the unspeakable, Margaret Reynolds
8. Viewing `Agamemnon' in 19th-century Britain, Fiona Macintosh
9. OTOTOTOI: Virginia Woolf and `the naked cry' of Cassandra, Yopie Prins
III. The Languages of Translation
10. Translation or transubstantiation, J. Michael Walton
11. Staging `Agamemnon': the languages of translation, Lorna Hardwick
12. Pasolini's `Agamemnon': translation, screen version, performance, Massimo Fusillo
13. The Harrison version: `so long ago that it's become a song?', Oliver Taplin
IV. The International View
14. `Agamemnon' in Russia, Dimitry Trubotchkin
15. Ariane Mnouchkine and the history of the French `Agamemnon', Pierre Judet de la Combe
16. The chorus of Aeschylus' `Agamemnon' in modern stage productions: towards the `performative turn', Anton Bierl
17. The Millennium Project: `Agamemnon' in the United States, Helene Foley
Epilogue
18. Cassandra: the prophet unveiled, Rush Rehm
Appendix
19. `Agamemnons' on the database, Amanda Wrigley