Page 16 - GALIET MUSIC´S METAPHOR: The House of Atreus IV

Of all the musical, textual and theatrical successes and achievements of “The House of Atreus,” Orestes’ matricide and the depictions of Apollo and Athena become the most surprising and, in a way, the least representative acts in the entire play. Orestes’ matricide, in Libation Bearers, is notoriously unconventional. It seems to violate the classical convention of maintaining violent murders and mutilations off-stage (Sophocles’ Ajax seems to be the only exception). While this classical convention might have conformed to a religious taboo; the difficulty of staging murders cannot be rejected. Although it might have been easier to display dead corpses on stage, murders on stage are problematic: actors and time are limited and the presence of the chorus in the orchestra makes murder scenes awkward to stage. Having had these things in mind, we are truly surprised when we see Orestes’ on-stage matricide. Instead, we had expected to see the supplications of Clytemnestra, the vacillation of Orestes, but not the three-stroke murder, which was perceived as a violent, three-minute distortion. The stage seems to have been, momentarily, transformed into either a bloody tableau or eccyclema scene. Less shocking and surprising were the prudent representations of Apollo and Athena on altars11 despite that it might have seemed surprising and sacrilegious to a classical audience to witness a representation of a god. In the Greek mind, gods or immortals ought not to be seen for fear of suffering severe punishment. Moreover, the fact that Clytemnestra’s spoke from the heights of her palace reduces the theatrical impact of the gods whose altars appear on stage lower in height. The choice of business suit as garments for Apollo and Athena can be understood in relation to Athens’ transition from mythical to philosophical Greece: from the honour-shame code and the wrath of Mt. Olympus to the trial-by- jury code and the fairness of the Aeropagus.
11 In the classical stage, the gods may have appeared above the skene or hung from a crane.
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