The Chorégies d’Orange are France’s oldest active festival: they date back to 1869!

This venerable age has not prevented them from preserving their originality:
through the name they bear, from the Greek ‘choreos’, harking back to the Graeco-Latin tradition;
through the location of the summer performances, a perfectly preserved Roman theatre, that seats 8,300 and can boast its original stage wall and its outstanding acoustics;
through the lyric and musical vocation that is theirs and that allows them to organise one of the leading French music festival, with an undisputed international reputation to boot.

The first performance was given in 1869, with Méhul’s opera ‘Joseph’. The Roman theatre was then dedicated to the French dramatic authors of the times, but also to the rediscovery of the great Graeco-Roman tragedies.

From 1971 onward, when the ‘Nouvelles Chorégies’ were founded, the Roman theatre turned entirely to modern lyric and musical works, immediately meeting huge success.

All the great names of lyric art have performed here, imparting to this ideal stage an unfailing international prestige.

https://choregies.fr/