Produced more frequently on the ancient stage than any other tragedy, Orestes retells with striking innovations the story of the young man who kills his mother to avenge her murder of his father. Though eventually exonerated, Orestes becomes a fugitive from the Furies (avenging spirits) of his mother's blood. On the brink of destruction, he is saved in the end by Apollo, who had commanded the matricide.

Powerful and gripping, Orestes sweeps us along with a momentum that, starting slowly, builds inevitably to one of the most spectacular climaxes in all Greek tragedy.