Metamorphoses

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My soul is wrought to sing of forms transformed to bodies new and strange!

Apollo and Daphne, Bacchus, Teiresias, Perseus, Philomela, or the iconic Medea ... Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso compiled his unprecedented opus in the year 2 AD, where he collected the essential mythological narratives of the Ancient Greek epoch – at that time nearing its end – in a single, chronologically arranged whole. The cycle of notorious stories, from the pagan version of the Creation of the World and the ensuing Titanomachy to the account of the lives of ancient heroes, gods or demigods, which now forms the cultural and historical fundaments inherent to the Western civilization, has one remarkable common denominator: the motif of metamorphosis, or transformation. This ubiquitous principle of existence has been ingrained in humankind since the dawn of time in terms of both an infinite philosophical problem and an eternal hope. Ovid’s immortal poem reveals figurative yet concrete and comprehensible parable about physical and metaphysical metamorphoses – subtle or devastating, intimate or global – and invite us to consider our perception of European traditions, but also the general ways of searching for truth, whether over time or deep inside our own soul.

For the 2025/2026 season, the SKUTR directing duo have prepared their own selection of texts from the Greek poet’s enormous body of work, encompassing fifteen collections in total. Their imaginative stage interpretation adapted for the 21st century audience will be presented at the State Opera. As a follow-up to the production Don Quixote. The Waste Land, the NT Drama thus continues their series of original narratives unbound with a fixed plot, as the most natural way of their artistic style. Indeed, this theme is arguably an ideal instrument for uncovering the meaning of the archetypal stories in contemporary contexts.