The Colosseum Reopens for Shows

R O M E, July 19 -- The Colosseum, Rome’s ancient arena ofdeath and slaughter, is preparing to stage its first majorspectacle before a paying audience in 1,500 years. Starting today, the amphitheater will host a two-week-long theater festival.

Completed under Roman Emperor Titus in A.D. 80, the amphitheater will not be hosting the gory combat brought vividly tolife in the recent box office smash Gladiator, but a morecivilized festival of Greek tragedy.

“This is a historical event for thismonument and this country,” Italian Culture Minister GiovannaMelandri told reporters after unveiling the $724,500 stage built over part of the floorless Colosseum.

Restorers at Work — for Years

The performances were made possible by building a woodenstructure over a section of underground labyrinth that oncehoused gladiators and wild beasts, capping years of restorationwork. The passages, clogged with earth over the centuries, weredug out on the order of French Emperor Napoleon at the end ofthe 18th century.

“We are not going back to [the Colosseum’s] gruesome andtragic origins but will instead give space to art and culture,”Melandri said.

The festival will include three tragedies by ancient Greekplaywright Sophocles performed between July 19 and Aug. 6.

Oedipus Rex by the Greek National Theater will befollowed by Antigone by the Dramatic Arts Center of Tehran.

Rome’s prestigious Santa Cecilia Academy will end thefestival with the opera Oedipus by 19th-century Germancomposer Felix Mendelssohn, adapted from Sophocles’ Oedipus inColonus.

Fit for an Emperor

Workers were preparing seats and standing room for 700spectators at the eastern end of the Colosseum near the podiumwhere the emperor, his court and senators used to give thethumbs-up or down to decide the gladiators’ fate.

When ancient Rome ruled the Western world, the then-marble-clad building provided entertainment for up to 70,000citizens, rich and poor.