Aeschylus' "Perses" premiers at the Odeon of Herod Atticus with Karolos Koun as director and music by Giannis Christou

"Perses" was directed by Karolos Koun, first in London on April 20, 1965, at the Aldwych Theatre, for the World Theatre Season theatre festival, and later at the Odeon of Herod Atticus for the Athens Festival, on August 21, 24, and 25 in the same year.

The musicologist Giorgos Leotsakos wrote about the play: "We had, at last, to deal with a man (p.s.: Giannis Christou) who treated the classic texts not as mummified relics subject to a public lying in state, but as channels of overwhelming emotion, the kind that is born from the perfect collaboration between director and musician.

For this particular performance, Koun himself stated: "Through the body and the entirety of its expression, the element of instinct surfaces as a primal expression, as an interaction of man with the "other", as an element of communication. And when the chorus, after the appearance of Darius, feels the sadness and remembers old Persia, a silent tremor begins, and they are all there together as if they have reached a state of delirium, provoked by the meditation at a Khanqah. At this point, there was an absolute convergence of music and directing, which we owe to our collaboration with Mr. Christou".