Program
Requiem for the End of Love
performance-installation
Composer: Giorgos Koumendakis
Concept, stage direction, choreography, visual design: Dimitris Papaioannou
Musical director and conductor: Teodor Currentzis
Set design: Dimitris Papaioannou and Loukas Bakas (based on the initial set design by Lili Pezanou)
Costume design: Vassilis Papatsarouchas
Lighting design: Dimitris Papaioannou, Stefanos Droussiotis
Performers:
50 performers
guest soprano
musicAeterna Orchestra and Choir
Details
In January 2026, the musicAeterna Orchestra and Choir conducted by Teodor Currentzis will participate in a major project of the Greek National Opera — the revival of the Requiem for the End of Love performance-installation, a production created 30 years ago by stage director Dimitris Papaioannou and composer Giorgos Koumendakis.
In 1995, underground choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou, shocked by the death of several of his friends, created a requiem in memory of them, combining elements of dance, physical, and musical theatre. The performance, in which Papaioannou’s own dance troupe Edafos Dance Theatre took part, unfolded in the space of the old Athenian electric power ststation, was called A Moment’s Silence and consisted of two parts. The music for the first part, Requiem for the End of Love for solo soprano, orchestra and choir, was written specifically for the production by Giorgos Koumendakis, a young composer who has just won the prestigious Rome Prize. The long-term collaboration between the director and the composer culminated, among other projects, in the joint work on the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. Today, Dimitris Papaioannou is one of the world’s most famous directors of the avant-garde theatre, and Giorgos Koumendakis is the artistic director of the Greek National Opera, the author of four operas and more than a hundred works for different instrumentations.
The return of the two masters to their early iconic opus will not be literal, although a giant staircase will once again be erected on the stage of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre — a powerful visual performance venue. Conducted by Teodor Currentzis, the musicAeterna Orchestra and Choir will perform Requiem for the End of Love as a contemporary work, reflecting the present moment. After all, the images that the composer embodied in the music at the director’s insistence sound just as poignant as they did 30 years ago — death, a storm that takes away lives, and fear, which is the destroyer of love.