The first British performance of the tragedy by HEINRICH VON KLEIST (written in 1808) in a specially commissioned version by ROBERT NYE with Barbara Jefford
Martin Jarvis , Rosalie Crutchley Kathleen Michael and David Buck
Music and sound score by DAVID CAIN
Declared by Goethe to be ' the product of a diseased imagination,' Kleist's extraordinary epic play takes the legend of Achilles and Penthesilea in an unusual variant - setting the protagonists in a world where they meet both in love and in hate, neither fully understanding the nature of their desires or their objectives. Meanings are so inaccessible that the violent extremes cannot be unravelled one from the other. Truth and Deception, Reality and Illusion change and interchange, the very essence of Masculinity and Femininity is examined and questioned. Beauty and Bestiality go hand in hand in squalor and in splendour ' and those who seek to learn the whole truth find it eventually beyond the compass of the human mind. The Greeks
Kings and Generals:
Antilochus-TREVOR MARTIN Odysseus.................DAVID BUCK Diomedes...........GABRIEL WOOLF Achilles MARTIN JARVIS
Adrastes, a Captain.DAVID VALLA Automedon, the charioteer
SEAN BARRETT
A Myrmidon....CLIFFORD NORGATE A Doiopian Captain
PATRICK TULL
An Aetolian
An Herald ..... EDWARD KELSEY The Amazons
Penthesilea, Queen of the Amazons BARBARA JEFFORD Prothoe, a Princess, her companion ROSALIE CRUTCHLEY
Amazon Princesses:
Meroe .................. EVA HADDON Asteria ........... ROSALIND shanks
The High Priestess of Artemis KATHLEEN MICHAEL
Arsinoe sheila GRANT Amazon Girls and Warriors
JANK KNOWLES, ELIZABETH PROUD OLWEN GRIFFITHS , EVA STUART
The Musicians
SYMPHONIAS SACRAE
MEMBERS OF THE
TILFORD BACH FESTIVAL CHOIR Percussion: DAVID CORKHILL TERRY EMERY , BARRY QUINN CLIVE HEATH (organ) conducted by THE COMPOSER with special sound by DAVID CAIN and RICHARD YEOMAN-CLARKE in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
The Scene: a Battlefield near Troy
Arranged for stereo and produced by JOHN POWELL