Laudator Temporis Acti

Euripides, Orestes edited with translation and commentary by M.L. West (Warminster: Aris & Phillips Ltd, 1987), p. 28:

Not many people, if asked to nominate the greatest Greek tragedy, would choose Orestes. For true tragic greatness we expect horrific indignity faced with terrific dignity; we look to the doom-laden atmospherics of Agamemnon, the ruthless mechanism of Oedipus Tyrannus, the harrowing psychology of Medea or Philocletes. We do not admit the "melodramas" as having a serious claim. But there is a sense in which tragōidiā, considered not as a sublime abstraction but as theatre for the people, did not realise its full potential until Euripides perfected the art of balancing one emotion against another, one expectation against another, one sympathy against another, and of running his audience through a gamut of sensations to a final tonic chord of satiety and satisfaction. If there is one play in which this perfection may be said to have been achieved, it is Orestes.

[....]

Snobs may dismiss this popularity as evidence of debased taste. Let them. Orestes is not an Agamemnon or an Oedipus, but it is first-rate theatre, a rattling good play that deserves the attention of everyone interested in ancient drama.