Spectacle Returns to Rome’s Colosseum and Gets a Thumbs Up

The Roman Colosseum, that ancient site of gladiator combat and pillaged emblem of the city’s eternity, began a civilized new mission Wednesday night as a black-robed king strode into the arena and declared in Greek: “My children, why sit ye here as supplicants?”

Thus opened the Greek National Theater’s production of “Oedipus Rex,” the first spectacle staged in the Colosseum in 1,477 years and a milestone in modern Rome’s multimillion-dollar effort to reclaim and redefine its decaying ancient monuments.

On a clear, festive night, President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and about 700 other spectators watched from near the podium where Roman emperors pointed their thumbs to decide the fates of gladiators. The performance of Sophocles’ classical tragedy, featuring a ghostly, white-robed chorus of living and plaster figures, earned an enthusiastic thumbs up.

“No blood, no lions,” said Giovanna Mellandri, Italy’s culture minister and chief promoter of a radical experiment to bring high-brow performances and small audiences inside Rome’s best known monument. “We are happy to give the Colosseum over to culture and art.”

Unlike some younger European cities, Rome did not erect grandiose new monuments to greet the millennium but is working feverishly to spruce up old ones. The result is that Rome, more than any other world capital, has recaptured some of the atmosphere it once had--2,000 years ago.

With private donations and $3 million a week from a special lottery, the Culture Ministry has in the past year restored and opened the ruins of Nero’s Domus Aurea palace and the sculpture-rich Villa dei Quintili to visitors. Rome has barred vehicles from dozens of historic piazzas and scraped centuries of grime from its oldest monuments.

Engineers Replace Part of Long-Missing Floor

The Colosseum, inaugurated in AD 80 with 100 days of gladiator combat, is the centerpiece of this revival. After eight years of restoration, engineers this month replaced part of its long-missing floor, creating a new stage over a 4,300-square-foot section of the vast labyrinth that once housed animals, men and props.

Covering one-seventh of the arena’s floor space, the stage makes it easier for a visitor to imagine what the Colosseum looked like in ancient times. The laminated wooden planks are at the same level where the gladiators fought; they are covered with sand, as they were in ancient times to prevent the combatants from slipping and to absorb their blood.

Looking up into the vast, elliptical amphitheater, members of the Greek troupe said before a rehearsal Tuesday that they wanted their performance of the play--whose murder, suicide and incest are not portrayed on stage--to breathe a new spirit into the old battleground.

“It’s a victory for the theater to act in this place,” said Grigoris Valtinos, who plays Oedipus. “This place is full of blood, but I hope to fill it with soul.”

Gladiator combat was banned here in 407, and fights with wild beasts in 523. No show has been mounted in the Colosseum since, historians say.

As it fell into disuse, the 50,000-seat stadium was damaged by earthquakes and stripped of much of its interior--for travertine marble and other material to help build St. Peter’s Basilica and various Renaissance palazzos. Sporadic restoration began 200 years ago and was accelerated in the 1990s, drawing 1.8 million visitors last year to a symbol of imperial might that never lost its grandeur.

Although most historians say that no Christians were martyred in the Colosseum, it has been sanctified by the Roman Catholic Church, whose popes make the Way of the Cross there every Good Friday. Last year, Rome’s city administration began bathing the monument in gold light each time a government abolishes the death penalty or commutes a death sentence--an event that has occurred 13 times.

“Oedipus Rex,” written in the 5th century BC, has turned the Colosseum into a summer celebration of Rome’s classical roots. Wednesday’s performance started its three-night run, and it will be followed on the same stage by two other Sophoclean tragedies--”Antigone,” performed by the Dramatic Arts Center of Tehran, and the opera “Oedipus,” an adaptation of the play “Oedipus at Colonus,” staged by Rome’s Santa Cecilia Academy.

Curators Kept Out Commercial Operators

For decades, the Colosseum’s state-appointed curators had fought in the name of conservation to keep out performers, filmmakers and other commercial operators. (The movie “The Gladiator,” starring Russell Crowe, used digital imagery to depict the arena.)

The conservationists relented after engineers found a technique to support the stage on 10 lightweight wooden pillars resting on blocks that do not interfere with archeological work in the labyrinth below. The stage, which cost $700,000, took five years to plan and 60 days to build; if deemed harmful to the arena’s foundation, it can be taken down quickly.

“We found a technical solution not only for the Colosseum but for other monuments around the country,” Mellandri, the culture minister, said in an interview. “The antagonism between those wanting to conserve our monuments and those wanting to give them back to the people has been overcome.”

The Sophocles series, she said, is the start of a trial that will determine whether the Colosseum can withstand a permanent schedule of performances and whether tourists, now confined to limited sections of the grandstands, can wander the stage as well.

For now, “only the highest standard” of theater and concerts will be allowed in the Colosseum, the minister said. “We don’t want to overuse it. We want to keep it special.”

Romans have applauded the move while complaining about the high cost of tickets for the series--$58 for seats, $25 for standing room.

“Many Romans think of the Colosseum as a traffic divider, something they have to drive around,” Fabio Sonnini, an architect, said after seeing the performance. “The chance to experience it from the inside is a beautiful idea, but these spectacles should not be for just the elite.”

The performance was equally thrilling for the actors, despite difficult acoustics that forced them to compete with ambulance sirens and other urban noise.

“We have the same problem [performing in monuments] in Greece,” said Genny Gaitanopoulou, a Cypriot actress who plays Jocasta, the mother and wife of Oedipus. “I don’t know how this could ever be converted into a playhouse. Being in the Colosseum is more of a happening. It’s a heavenly feeling.”