Avanti, Maestro! Following its grand tour across Greece, which captivated both children and adults, the shadow puppet opera Rigoletto as Karagiozis is coming to delight Athens audiences at the GNO Alternative Stage in the SNFCC for 10 morning performances, from 14 December 2025 to 4 January 2026. In this new successful production of the Alternative Stage, the most famous hunchback jester in shadow puppet theatre, Karagiozis, is called upon to undertake an… operatic mission: to perform the most renowned hunchback in opera, Rigoletto! Karagiozis as Rigoletto is an imaginative and ingenious production that humorously unveils the entire backstage world of opera, spreading knowledge and plenty of laughter in an alternative way!

The shadow puppet opera Karagiozis as Rigoletto, written by versatile comedian, director and librettist Dimitris Dimopoulos and experienced shadow puppeteer Alexandros Melissinos, suddenly makes Karagiozis a star in Giuseppe Verdi’s masterful opera Rigoletto. With boundless humour and a disarming innocence, this beloved hero learns everything required to stage an opera, discovering the magic of music theatre through the colourful universe of shadow puppetry.

Its plot is quite intriguing: preparations for the opening of an opera house founded by the Vizier’s daughter in the seraglio are reaching their climax. The opening performance will be the opera Rigoletto, with her in the leading role of Gilda. Seeking the perfect performer for the role of Rigoletto, Gilda’s father and the court’s hunchback jester, the Vizier’s daughter decides to call Karagiozis to audition. Karagiozis is successful, and after the auditions for the role of the Duke are also completed, the three main roles of the opera are filled. Rehearsals begin for a glamorous premiere, brimming with unexpected setbacks and sudden misunderstandings…

The performance Karagiozis as Rigoletto skillfully combines traditional shadow puppet theatre with excerpts from Verdi’s opera Rigoletto and Francesco Maria Piave’s original libretto, performed in Greek by opera singers Manos Kokkonis, Giannis Selitsaniotis, and Marilena Striftombola, accompanied on the piano by Markos Kotsias and Lina Zachari, who is also responsible for the musical adaptation.

Alexandros Melissinos brings Karagiozis’ world to life with vibrancy and originality, making this performance a fresh and interactive take on shadow puppet theatre. “Our performance is a unique way for both children and adults to be introduced to opera through shadow puppet theatre. Although these two arts may seem different, in practice, we discover that they share many elements. The action unfolds both onstage and backstage, featuring themes from Verdi’s renowned opera. In addition to experiencing Rigoletto as a work, audiences also get to know how operas are technically staged, discovering the art behind the scenes. This performance offers not only entertainment but also knowledge,” notes Alexandros Melissinos.

About the making of the show, Dimitris Dimopoulos, who also adapted the libretto excerpts into Greek, remarks: “When I was invited to take on the translation of the sung excerpts and write the prose parts for this work, along with shadow puppeteer Alexandros Melissinos, I suggested that the plot should revolve around the preparation of an opera for the opening of an opera house, because what immediately popped into my mind was the image of the character Hadjiavatis as a crier, trumpeting an audition, along with the typical parade of characters who come to participate in it. This is kind of how we managed to avoid the gravitas of the original work, as we did not want to smooth out the melodramatic core of the opera’s plot; instead, we kept it in the new adaptation of the lyrics from selected excerpts that are interpolated into a text marked by many of the traditional shadow puppet theatre techniques, including, of course, the shadow puppeteer’s improvisations. In a nutshell, oh, it’s such fun!”