Opera set design, GNO, Athens

The client, the internationally acclaimed composer Dimitra Trypani, commissioned Stavropoulou Architects to create the scenography for a new opera ‘ANDREI: Requiem in Eight Scenes’ for the Greek National Opera, at the Stavros Niarchos Hall in Athens.

The event, which Trypani describes as ‘neither a concert nor an opera nor a play but a ritualistic sound performance’, features 30 performers and acts as a requiem for Andrei Tarkofsky, the influential Russian filmmaker, and his relationship with religion.

The project was the fruition of a long-held dream by Trypani, and the collaboration was a meeting of minds – conducted largely online, during a time of great international confusion and uncertainty. Stavropoulou Architects were delighted to be approached directly to work on this project.

Through lengthy videocalls and meetings Dimitra Trypani and Elena Stavropoulou forged and developed ideas, to create a fitting physical form to accompany the creative work.

Whilst architecture creates a hybrid space that balances the functional needs of reality and an imaginary and poetic world, scenography is an extension of the director and composer’s vision. It is the location where a life experience becomes a narrative, where reality and fantasy coexist.