The applause that first greeted the end of the marathon performance was earnest but subdued. Then a curious thing happened. The expressionless Peter Stein energetically bounded on stage to join his cast for the curtain call.

The appearance of the acclaimed German director was just what the audience of nearly 1,000 was waiting for. The hall suddenly came alive. Applause turned to cheers, then cheers turned to a prolonged and enthusiastic standing ovation.

After eight on-again, off-again years of scheduling, financial and ideological barriers, Peter Stein's eagerly anticipated production of Aeschylus' trilolgy, The Oresteia, had at last become a reality in Russia.

The project was originally banned in 1986 by Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, who objected to a German director bringing a Greek drama to a stage belonging to the Soviet Army. In an ironic twist of fate, Yazov is now awaiting trial for his role in the 1991 attempted coup, and Stein, 57, one of Germany's best-known directors, is receiving an overdue hero's welcome in Moscow.

The often workman-like, occasionally spectacular performance at the premiere was reduced almost to the status of a sideshow, however. While the actors gamely fought off a professionally concealed case of the opening-night jitters, the high-powered, high-profile audience was in its element.

Roving television and radio crews stirred the biggest excitement before the show and during intermissions. They hungrily stalked the theater's corridors, swooping down on every familiar face in search of the perfect sound bite and creating mini traffic jams as rubbernecks gathered to gawk at the celebrities. Some of them, like television personality and theater director Mark Zakharov, hung around only long enough to say they had been there. During an interview at the first of two intermissions, Zakharov called Stein an "outstanding director" and predicted that his "debatable staging" will require "much study in the future." As soon as the camera lights were off, Sakharov donned his coat and left.

He was not alone. As the second part got under way, the crowed had thinned by about ten percent. Still, most of the audience, including the politicians Ghennady Burbulis and Vladimir Shumeiko, stuck it out to the end. What they saw was an uneven performance jointly produced by the International Confederation of Theater Associations (Moscow), Hahn Productions (Munich) and the Russian Army Theater, that frequently failed to sustain momentum but which, at moments, almost unexpectedly burst into brilliance.

The first part, Agamemnon, tells of King Agamemnon's triumphant return from Troy and of his murder by his wife, Clytemnestra. After a delightfully playful prologue in which a scout peered suspiciously from on high at the spectators filing into the hall, this three-hour segment progressed heavily and slowly, taking its cue from Moidele Bickel's gray and black set and costumes.

Yekaterina Vasilyeva, who would electrify the hall with her performance of Clytemnestra in the second segment, struggled early on to match her incendiary temperament with the mannered style of the Greek tragedy.

The initial breakthrough came as the first intermission was already nearing. Nataliya Kochetova gave a searing performance as the seer Cassandra, who predicts that Clytemnestra will kill her and Agamemnon both. Kochetova left the stage to the applause of the suddenly awakened audience.

The evening's unquestioned highlight was the second segment, The Libation-Bearers, in which Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, returns home to avenge his father by killing his mother and her new husband. His saber poised at his mother's breast, ready to fell her at any moment, Yevgeny Mironov's Orestes seemed to exceed the limits of mental endurance as he withstood the cajoling, the pleading and the verbal manipulations of Vasilyeva's white-hot, stunningly intense Clytemnestra. But withstand her, he did – The Libation-Bearers, like Agamemnon, ended with the display of two more bloodied corpses.

The third segment, the Eumenides, is famous for its model of a modern judicial system that replaces the cycles of revenge. Written 2,500 years ago, that is the element which so many have said makes the present production of The Oresteia in Russia so timely. In this cathartic conclusion, Stein showed a splendid sense of humor. After the newly-created court absolves Orestes of responsibility for murdering his mother, the jurymen erupt into a comical, knock-down, drag-out brawl. Looking more like a scene from the nightly news than from a Greek tragedy, it drew a burst of healthy laughter from the spectators.

Pre-opener expectations about this Oresteia ran extraordinarily high. The Russian press' frequent worshipful references to Stein as "the Master" put the director in a difficult position. He had to produce a work of genius or disappoint.

The slow-building response at performance's end clearly indicated that many were underwhelmed. But the enthusiastic reaction awarded Stein personally was a clear sign that, at least for the moment, few were holding that against him. And when the emotional actors inundated the beaming Stein in a sea of bouquets, the atmosphere even took on the smell of hard-earned success.