Odeon of Herodes Atticus statue

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus was built into the south slope of the Athenian Acropolis in 161 CE by the wealthy sophist and benefactor Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife Aspasia Annia Regilla. The semicircular theatre, with its three-storey stone facade, could seat five thousand spectators for musical and dramatic performances under a cedar-wood roof. Restored in the 1950s by the Greek state, the Herodeion has been the venue for the Athens Festival since 1955 — the open-air theatre in which Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti and the National Theatre of Greece have performed against the most monumental backdrop in Europe.