elc team
Requiem for the End of Love, a work that marked the artistic landscape of the 1990s, returns for twelve unique performances on 24, 25, 27, 28, 29 and 30 January 2026 at the Stavros Niarchos Hall of the Greek National Opera at the SNFCC.
This deeply moving performance-installation signals the long-awaited reunion of two iconic creative companions from the legendary Edafos Dance Theatre: director and choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou and composer Giorgos Koumendakis, in a new interpretation conducted by internationally acclaimed maestro Teodor Currentzis. The production’s Grand Sponsor is PPC. It is implemented with the support of a donation by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), aimed at strengthening the Greek National Opera’s artistic outreach.
The Greek National Opera welcomes 2026 with the major premiere of Requiem for the End of Love, one of the most emblematic works of the early creative period of composer and GNO Artistic Director Giorgos Koumendakis, in a powerful performance-installation by Dimitris Papaioannou, featuring fifty performers on stage. Greek maestro Teodor Currentzis will conduct soloists from the GNO Orchestra, the choral ensemble MEIZON Ensemble, and sopranos Diana Nosyireva and Xenia Dorontova.
Requiem for the End of Love by Giorgos Koumendakis was first presented in 1995 at the former PPC factory in Neo Faliro, as the first chapter of the performance-installation One Minute of Silence, created by the legendary Edafos Dance Theatre under the concept, direction and choreography of Dimitris Papaioannou. With the trauma of losing beloved friends to AIDS still painfully present, and with “fear haunting the erotic life of an entire generation,” Papaioannou asked Koumendakis to compose a “storm of death” a requiem for those lost to AIDS. In the second chapter of the same work, hesitant hope for life emerged through Songs of Sin by Manos Hadjidakis, with poetry by Dinos Christianopoulos.
Thirty-one years later, after cycles that have opened and closed and paths that have sometimes run parallel and sometimes opposed one another, Dimitris Papaioannou sets up the monumental staircase of the stage installation at the Greek National Opera and returns to Requiem for the End of Love from the very beginning “one of the most powerful musical works by Giorgos Koumendakis,” as Papaioannou himself notes.
The collaboration between the two artists, who opened new pathways in stage language for dance, theatre and opera, and even for the ceremonies of the Olympic Games, is now joined by a conductor whose name is internationally associated with singular, idiosyncratic interpretations of major symphonic works and operas: Teodor Currentzis.
Twenty-four years after the dissolution of Edafos Dance Theatre, an ensemble that left an indelible mark on the Greek artistic scene during its seventeen years of activity, Greek and international audiences will have the opportunity to rediscover a Papaioannou work that balances physical theatre with visual installation, set to a musical composition that stands as an early dramatic, operatic precursor in Koumendakis’ compositional trajectory.
The dynamic collaboration between Papaioannou and Koumendakis in the 1990s contributed to the first public, open artistic recognition in Greece of the AIDS epidemic and the rights of an entire community.
Performance-installation • New production
Requiem for the End of Love
Giorgos Koumendakis / Dimitris Papaioannou
24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30 January 2026
Start times: 19:30, 21:00 (Sunday: 18:30, 20:00)
Stavros Niarchos Hall, Greek National Opera – SNFCC
Music: Giorgos Koumendakis
Music direction: Teodor Currentzis
Concept, direction, choreography, visual design: Dimitris Papaioannou
The set design of the 1995 production was by Lili Pezanou.
The 2026 version is signed by Dimitris Papaioannou and Lukas Bakas.
Lighting: Dimitris Papaioannou, Stefanos Drousioitis
Costumes: Vasilis Papatsarouchas
MEIZON Ensemble Director: Agathangelos Georgakatos
Dimitris Papaioannou Team
Production direction & execution, assistant director: Tina Papanikolaou
Photography / filming: Julian Mommert
Angel of Death:
Diana Nosyireva: 24, 29 Jan (21:00), 25 Jan (20:00), 27, 28, 30 Jan (19:30)
Xenia Dorontova: 24, 29 Jan (19:30), 25 Jan (18:30), 27, 28, 30 Jan (21:00)
Performers: (as listed)
Soloists from the GNO Orchestra
MEIZON Ensemble
Tickets for all performances are sold out.
For possible cancellations: GNO Box Office (+30 213 088 5700, daily 09:00–21:00)
The Greek National Opera is subsidized by the Ministry of Culture.
Grand Sponsor: PPC
Major Donor of the GNO & Performance Donor: Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF)
Photos: © Julian Mommert
