Opera Archives - Κρατική Ορχήστρα Αθηνών

Around the World in 80ish minutes

gpapa_koa — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 11:21:44 +0000

The honourable Phileas Fogg travelled around the world in 80 (+1) days, spending a fortune like a true gentleman in order to win a bet. Alternatively, he might just as well have settled deeper into the armchair of his London club and journeyed in his imagination across seas and continents — ears open, and in the company of dazzling soloists, the city’s State Orchestra with a festive, brilliant, and highly virtuosic programme, and of course Alexandros Myrat, a familiar friend of Megaron. Before him (and us) will parade Gershwin’s syncopated jazz swing, the nostalgic waltzes of Hisaishi and Shostakovich, the African-American rhythms of Florence Price, and Chen Yi who transports us for a while to 19th-century China. Johann Strauss makes a brief appearance, as does Ravel with his jester, Skalkottas with a sparkling miniature for xylophone, the dazzling John Williams and Ennio Morricone, Villa-Lobos with his beguiling Bachiana, and Sarasate with his fiery Gypsy Airs. And for the finale, we head to South America, so that we — together with our Phileas — may welcome the New Year dancing to Latin American rhythms.

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Around the World in 80ish minutes

gpapa_koa — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 08:41:26 +0000

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Richard Strauss: Salome

gpapa_koa — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 07:54:43 +0000

The passion of the sensual princess Salome for John the Baptist, one of the most famous biblical stories combining religion with unrequited love and flagrant crime was turned into a theatrical work by Oscar Wilde and this was the basis for Richard Strauss’s opera Salome. At the peak of his maturity and success, the great German Romanticist created a diachronically shocking musical score due to its arousing harmonic plot, its very plethoric instrumentation and its brilliant phonetic expression. Two of the most in demand voices of the international operatic spectrum, the Russian soprano Elena Stikhina and the Austrian tenor Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke are coming to Greece to perform the leading roles of Salome and Herode correspondingly, under the baton of Greece’s top opera conductor, Lukas Karytinos.

Golden Sponsor

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Gala celebration

kostas_know — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 20:29:34 +0000

The New Year’s Eve gala could not but be dedicated to Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). This year, we have the pleasure of collaborating with the renowned Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, the city where he lived for more than thirty years and where he composed his masterpieces. In co-production with the CTO and with the valuable assistance of the Italian Cultural Institute of Athens, we welcome to the stage of Megaron the Athens Concert Hall three exceptional performers: Claudia Pavone (Valeria Sepe, the soprano who was initially to sing, couldn’t participate due to health issue) the ideal Butterfly in the festive season of the 2024 Puccini Festival; Angelo Villari, a tenor born almost specifically for the great roles of the composer; and Valerio Galli, a great conductor of the younger generation and winner of the famous Puccini Prize. At the heart of the programme are the three great love scenes for soprano and tenor from the famous “atypical trilogy”: La Bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. The duets of Mimi and Rodolfo, Tosca and Cavaradossi, Pinkerton and Cho-Cho-Cho-San are the epitome of Puccini’s lyrical style, with its source of melodic inspiration, orchestral mastery and unsurpassed vocal writing. However, there is also a lesser-known side of the composer, which we will discover in the orchestral excerpts from the – rather unknown – first two operas Le Villi and Edgar, as well as youthful works for orchestra, such as the Symphonic Prelude or the Symphonic Caprice (where the Bohemians already make their appearance, a full thirteen years before the opera was composed). A unique opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with the “maestro” from Lucca and to bow, once again, to his genius.

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Music day – 2024

kostas_know — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 20:29:12 +0000

The Athens State Orchestra welcomes the Music Day at the Gardens of Megaron with music created by Bernstein, Born, Strauss and Grothe. Panagiota Polyzoidou and Rafailia Kontou are the soloists of the programme. Ilias Voudouris conducts the orchestra.

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Gala concert with Jonas Kaufmann

kostas_know — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 20:25:41 +0000

Arias and orchestral pieces from the Italian and German operatic repertoires

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Gala celebration

kostas_know — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 20:25:17 +0000

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Vassiliki Karayanni performs with the Athens State Orchestra

kostas_know — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 20:24:54 +0000

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Opera Gala, Verdi – Puccini

kostas_know — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 20:24:34 +0000

Two leading Greek soloists who have been earning accolades for over twenty years on the stages of the world’s greatest opera houses—the soprano Alexia Voulgaridou and the baritone Aris Argiris, friends and collaborators since they studied together under the great Daphne Evangelatos—join forces at the Megaron for a unique concert.
With the distinguished Miltos Logiadis on the Athens State Orchestra podium, the two lyric artists perform popular scenes and arias from operas by Verdi and Puccini, including Tosca’s iconic second act.
The artists, along with the conductor and musicians of the Athens State Orchestra, will be donating their fees to the Maria Callas Scholarships, an organization with which they are closely associated and which was founded 60 years ago by Maria Callas herself to support young and talented Greek singers.

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The Athens State Orchestra in motion Ι – Mozart the Magic Flute

kostas_know — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 20:24:11 +0000

The timeless appeal of Mozart’s Magic Flute has a lot to do, of course, with the universally acknowledged perfection and expressiveness of his music, but it’s also because Emanuel Schikaneder’s libretto expresses the ever-topical humanist ideals of the European Enlightenment and of Freemasonry in an elegant and vividly symbolic way. Under the baton of the dynamic Katia Molfesi, a cast of fine Greek lyric actors recreate Mozart’s operatic swansong in a semi-staged version, adding a beautifully spiritual, fairy tale tone to this year’s Christmas celebrations.

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