‘The Revelation of Saint John’, according to Nikos Papakostas. When the work is rendered in images, places and sounds.

A collaboration between N. Papakostas, Th. Papayiannis and N. Desekopoulos.

The Revelation of Saint John according to Nikos Papakostas is being successfully presented in Greece and abroad for the fourth year in succession with glowing reviews from all the media.  The work, as staged in the Theatre Saint Michel in Brussels, was broadcast by ERT WORLD throughout the world, while the performance in the cathedral of the Holy Cross and the Archangel Michel, in London, was transmitted by HELLENIC TV to an audience of Greeks abroad.

The Revelation of Saint John is a work that touches all people, which moves between prophecy and vision, anxiety and transcendence, and has acquired a new and different form through its poetic rendition and musical setting by Nikos Papakostas, an exceptional effort at a metric rendition by the Epirote composer and poet, which combines words with images, images with harmonies and harmonies with light.

Without altering the content or adopting arbitrary interpretations, it comes a step closer to the religious, but not Greek, world-wide audience, displaying all its uniqueness. All its distinct power, its multiple symbolism, its divine majesty, as revealed in the visions and words of John.

The artist’s intention was to make an exceptionally difficult and sometimes opaque and almost incomprehensible text more intelligible to the reader and the audience and this why he chose simple, understandable and moderate language for his translation and poetic rendition. (Typically there are references to the daily and periodical press which are freely available).

This is an interactive production which, in its initial form, was accompanied by video and select artistic depictions of the Revelation, the time period from 950 to 1870, well as street art interventions, all followed by the music, enriched with traditional and modern instruments and motifs. An attempt to highlight the impressive, dense and all-out battle of forces in the original work.  Darkness against Light, Demons against Angels, human fear against primordial knowledge. This is a meeting-point, both in terms of art and interpretation, of the elements of nature and the symbolic features of the Revelation. The main elements are music, words and pictures. Sound with its silence and light with its shade.

In recent years, through the events taking place on the global theatrical stage, the REVELATION OF SAINT JOHN seems more topical and prophetic than ever.

At the beginning of 2016, this artistic effort attracted the attention of the great artists Nikos Desekopoulos (engraver) and Theodoros Papayannis (sculptor), both of whom had worked with Nikos Papakostas in the past, the intention being that they would accompany the enterprise with their own view and create works of art for this approach.

The result of this collaboration, which is ongoing, will be shown to the art-loving public through a series of presentations/exhibitions which have already been planned, starting on 21-27 November 2016 in the Municipal Gallery of Piraeus. A choir, with musical accompaniment, will be framed with works by Nikos Desekopoulos and Theodoros Papayannis. This composite activity will be presented for a limited number of performances, while the art exhibition which will accompany it will be of short duration. It will then move to the Athens Gallery, as well as to galleries in many other galleries in towns across Greece and abroad. It will be a real contribution to culture.