The Burial at Thebes
 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Seamus Heaney |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Faber and Faber |
Publication date | 2004 |
| Publication place | Ireland |
| Pages | 58 |
| ISBN | 0571223613 |
| OCLC | 54505360 |
The Burial at Thebes is a play by Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, based on the fifth century BC tragedy Antigone by Sophocles. It is also an opera by Dominique Le Gendre
The title of the play recalls Antigone's punishment - to be walled up in a cave - and her crime. Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus king of Thebes, Greece, learns that her brothers have killed each other fighting on different sides of a war. Creon, king of Thebes, buries one of the brothers, but refuses burial to the other 'traitor'. Antigone defies him, and as a punishment is walled up in a tomb. He eventually repents, but by then she has killed herself.
The play was adapted as an opera with music by Dominique Le Gendre and libretto by Heaney, which premiered at the Globe Theatre in London in 2008.
See also
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