CYPRUS: Pafos Aphrodite Festival to showcase Verdi’s opera masterpiece Macbeth

Cyprus’ premier cultural event the Pafos Aphrodite Festival will this year showcase Giuseppe Verdi’s masterpiece Macbeth performed by the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus on August 30, 31 and September 1, at the Medieval Castle.

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Festival president and Paphos Mayor Phedonas Phedonos said the institution’s 21-year creative presence put it at the epicentre of the island’s cultural developments.

He said it was not easy to attain the festival’s recognition, as the opera is not considered among the popular forms of art in Cyprus and never secured a critical mass of spectators that could sustain this kind of event.

Having survived the difficult years of the financial crisis it proved the Pafos Aphrodite Festival still has a role to play, said Phedonos.

Education and Culture Minister Costas Hambiaouris said the Festival is considered as the greatest annual cultural event in Cyprus of international standing.

“Over the past 21 years the festival contributed in strengthening the flow of cultural tourism to Cyprus, forming an eclectic audience and presenting unforgettable productions.” 

Τhe dramatic opera Macbeth (Macbetto) by Verdi, based on William Shakespeare`s homonymous drama, consists of four acts with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It premiered on 14 March 1847 at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence.

According to the organisers, in Macbeth, Verdi surpasses the conventional frames of his time and composes an operatic work of theatrical power and characters that possess extraordinary psychological depth and intensity, whereas with dexterous orchestration he succeeds in dramatically sketching violence, conspiracy and death.

Ticket prices range from €25 to €70 and there is simultaneous translation in Greek, English and Russian via subtitles.