Both stories share the unconditional giving, the utter consuming of the self and its transforming into absolute beauty and love.
In the first story, the student's unrequited love for the girl can be fulfilled only if he manages to find a red blooming rose in the heart of winter. The nightingale-poet tranfuses its blood inτο the sapless rose-tree. As soon as the nightingale dies, the rose is born. Νow it is the student's turn. The poet has been silenced.
In the second story, the prince is considered happy because he hasn't shed a single tear in his whole life. The swallow was happy because every time it could take off and leave the loves of its life behind before the cold winter set in. Both of them are barricaded behind the walls of their own self, focusing on their own sphere of existence, which is pushed forward by some unknown hand. The prince is the one who breaks this sphere and manages to really see the world. But what he sees causes him pain. His tears move the swallow, which decides to change the course of its life and stay with the prince, so that they can both give themselves to the world, to the life they truly loved.
Both stories leave us with unanswered questions. Who is the ultimate object of the sacrifice? What good can the red roses and the diamonds do, and to whom? What happens to the dead nightingales, to those who freeze to death?
The whole project is centered around the poetical dimension of the stories and it is based on the symbolisms inherent in the fairy tales, creating thus a narrative fabric of comic and tender moments.
Concept- Direction: Antonis Koutroumpis
Costume design: Maria Cataropoulou
Set design: Vaso Psaraki
Lighting design: Panagiotis Manousis
Musicians: Irina Dimaki (Cello), Stefania Katsarou (Flute)
Performers: Elias Mimmis, Olga Gerogiannaki, Katerina Stamatopoulou, Thenia Koutroumpi, Antonis Koutroumpis, Mary Tsarea
