A Classic Evening at the Theater of Ephesus
The Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra brought summer and sunset to life with a concert June 4.
I have been to Ephesus five or six times in the past seven months. It’s a hard place to write about, as there is so much to see and the site is so vast. I plan to tackle it piece by piece to give its many attractions the thought they deserve. I have already written a description of St. John’s Basilica and a service I attended there. I have also written a commentary on The Acts of John, a book of 2nd-century legends about the apostle’s time in Ephesus. In the future, through travelogue and tale, I will try to bring to life more aspects of this amazing city.
There are many amazing sites to see on a visit to Ephesus, but the most impressive is the ancient city’s 20,000-seat theater.
It’s the first thing that one notices about Ephesus. It rises so high along the slope of Mount Prion one can see it from far away, unlike the other ruins of the city, which are crowded in the valley between Prion and Mount Koressos.
In fact, one of the most impressive views I have seen was from the Walls of Ephesus Trail that follows the old city wall along the crest of Koressos Hill to the city’s south. I have also seen the theater on a hike from near the village of Zetinköy more than 7 km to the northwest. You just can’t miss it.
When my friend, Nur, told me she was going to a concert at the theater, then, I knew I couldn’t miss that, either, for the theater is a place that needs to be heard as well as seen. We would see the Istanbul-based Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra (TPO) perform Tchaikovsky and Zoltan Kodaly, as well as three pieces by contemporary Turkish composer, Hasan Uçarsu.
The Theater at Sunset
The concert began at 9:00, and we arrived early, just as the sun was setting over the Aegean. It was a different Ephesus than the one I had toured on two occasions. The vendors’ stalls were all closed, the tourist busses gone. The south entrance, the colonnade leading to the harbor, the library and the theater were all colorfully lit.
I climbed to the top row of the theater to snap a photo of the sunset. (The upper sections are all blocked off at the moment. I think that archaeologists are examining some villas that were built on the hill just above the theater).
By my estimation, the Theater of Ephesus has seen more than 840,000 in its 2,300 years of existence.
The theater has three stages, a lower bowl around the orchestra, a middle and an upper tier. Altogether, its capacity is almost 25,000 people.
The lower bowl, into which the concertgoers fit comfortably, is built over the original Greek theater, dating to the 3rd Century BCE rebuilding of the city by Lysimachus, one of Alexander’s generals, following the city’s participation in the Greek civil wars, and occupation by the Persian Empire.
Ephesus reached its golden era under the Romans, however. The Emperor Claudius began renovations that would expand the theater higher up the hill to its current size around 50 CE, and Nero (54-68 CE) continued the expansion, adding a two-story, stone skene at the back of the stage.
This adds a unique backdrop to one of the most famous events that happened at the theater – no, not a concert, or a match of gladiators, or other entertainment. It was the site of a near-riot when an itinerant preacher named Paul was dragged to the stage by silversmiths and accused of impiety. The smiths, who sold their wares in the huge agora across the street from the theater, shouted, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”
Why did they shout?
They may have been angry.
But in 53 CE, when Paul lived in Ephesus, Claudius’s workmen were already working on the skene at the front of the theater. Perhaps Paul’s accusers wanted to be heard above the hammering and chiseling of workmen.
They certainly didn’t need to shout. Today, even with many of the decorations and enhancements of the Roman Era lost to time, the acoustics of the Theater of Ephesus are superb. Indeed, the TPO used no speakers, only natural sound, and they filled the theater with music.
Last Christmas I was in the theater’s orchestra with my sister, and we noticed our boys had climbed to the top row of the theater. Using a voice I might use to speak to someone on the other side of a room, I said, “Jonah, clap your hands.”
My son, 150m away, looked down at us and clapped his hands. It was really cool.
The stage wasn’t the only dangerous place in the theater. A high wall rings the orchestra and separates it from the front row of seats. This was added in the 3rd Century CE to keep dangerous animals from escaping into the crowd during gladiatorial matches.
(No Christians were martyred in the theater, as far as I have learned, not that they were safe in Ephesus. Martyrdom spectacles were performed in the huge stadium that lay on another slope of Pion, about 200m to the north. Very little remains of the stadium today.)
The theater was severely damaged in an earthquake in 300 CE and again in 400 CE. It had melted into the hillside by the time it was excavated in 1874. The image below, from the website, Imperium Romanum, is a testament to the magic of archaeology to reconstruct a ruined city.
The Concert Setting
We were seated near the top of the lower bowl, and while the tickets had row and seat numbers, we just assembled along a marble bench in the general area of the tickets we had bought. Experienced Ephesian concertgoers had brought something soft to sit on, I admit, the marble wasn’t comfortable. Nur and I shared a foam windshield visor, which helped me to enjoy the concert.
Considering the outdoor setting, the sound was as clear as that inside a concert hall. A few times, the barking of Ephesus’s local pack of dogs added notes to the symphony Occasionally, my eyes would drift above the stage to see doves flying to and from their coves among the ruins – the “elbows” of the upper tiers that project out from the hill.
A challenge for the orchestra: there was no “backstage” in the theater. There is a narrow tunnel underneath the skene wide enough for one person to pass. I think the soloist and the inactive orchestra members may have stood on the other side of the skene and simply taken in the view of this historic city.
The Music
Aziz Shokhakimov, the Uzbek director of the TPO, put on an engaging show, showing off an touristy Ephesus T-Shirt underneath his tuxedo jacket. The concert began with the full orchestra playing Hasan Uçarsu’s Portraits, a set of three tonal poems the composer had fine-tuned over the past 25 years since he conceived the idea as a student in the United States.
As the program progressed, the orchestra grew smaller. Georgian-Turkish violinist Veriko Tchumburidze performed solo violin on Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D, Opus 35. The final series of pieces, dances by Hungarian composer, Zoltan Kodaly, danced us into the summer evening.
The brass were gone in the final set, and the clarinetist, one of only two in the orchestra at that point, really stood out with some amazing runs and solos. In fact, the TSO’s woodwinds section was small in comparison with the strings, but it sounded excellent. I counted five instruments: a piccolo, a flute, 2 clarinets and an oboe, small in comparison with the strings, but they were a delight.
Near the close, I thought back over the music I had heard. The selections had been light dances. Perfect for a summer evening and a glorious sunset. Yet I realized that I had hoped to experience some intense, dynamic moments of music as well, something that these selections left out.
By my estimation, the Theater of Ephesus has seen more than 840,000 in its 2,300 years of existence. I’m not sure where June 4, 2022, ranked among them. The evening of music was one that I certainly won’t forget in the 30 or so remaining years that I will live. That’s for sure.
School is out, so there will be more newsletters in your inbox over the coming weeks. My father is coming out to stay with me for a month, and we will be touring the Seven Churches of Revelation among other historic sites.