While studying at the National Conservatory and singing professionally as a soloist at the Royal Theatre Opera, Maria Kalogeropoulou (later Callas) also took part in a number of solo and group recitals in Athens and Thessaloniki (1938-1945). Accompanied on the piano by artists who included Andreas Paridis and Konstantinos Kydoniatis, she performed a series of arias and songs by a range of composers from Greece and around the world (“…with an understanding of the folk style one rarely finds in Greek singers…”: A. Lalaounis, I Vradini). A number of young and distinguished Greek singers will perform a part of her characteristically varied recital repertoire at the Ancient Epidaurus Little Theatre in a tribute whose conception and form we owe to Aris Christofellis.
Songs and arias Maria Callas sang in recitals around Greece with a piano accompaniment at the very start of her career in the 1940s, before she left for the US and the start of her international career.
Georg Friedrich Haendel, Care Selve
[Αria sung by Meleagro in the opera Atalanta]
Myrtò Papatanasiu, soprano
Gioacchino Rossini, Assisa à piè d’ un salice
[Desdemona’s willow song from the opera Otello]
Myrtò Papatanasiu, soprano
Landon Ronald, Love, I have won you
[From the song cycle A Cycle of Life]
Marina Fideli, mezzo-soprano
Gaetano Donizetti, Ο mio Fernando (from La Favorita)
[Aria sung by Leonora in the opera La Favorita)
Marina Fideli, mezzo-soprano
Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Mattinata
[Romanza]
Loukia Spanaki, soprano
Jules Massenet, Dis-moi que je suis belle
[Aria sung by Thaïs in the opera of the same name]
Loukia Spanaki, soprano
Henri Duparc, Élégie (Oh! Ne murmurez pas son nom!)
Marina Voulogianni, soprano
Charles Gounod, Plus grand dans son obscurité
[Cavatina sung by Balkis in La Reine de Saba]
Marina Voulogianni, soprano
Intermission
Georgios Poniridy, Virgin Mary of Sparta
Marina Fideli, mezzo-soprano
Dimitrios Rodios, Astero
Marina Fideli, mezzo-soprano
Theodoros Karyotakis, Anastasiá
Myrtò Papatanasiu, soprano
Nikolaos Lavdas, My love is getting married
Myrtò Papatanasiu, soprano
Menelaos Pallantios, The graveyard
Marina Voulogianni, soprano
Yannis Psaroudas, I shall not forget
Marina Voulogianni, soprano
Yannis Psaroudas, Two nights
Loukia Spanaki, soprano
Sebastián de Iradier, La Paloma (in Greek)
Loukia Spanaki, soprano
Ildebrando Pizzetti, Il Ballo
[From Tre Canti Greci]
Marina Voulogianni, soprano
Leo Delibes, Les filles de Cadix
Loukia Spanaki, soprano
Joaquín Turina, Las locas por amor
Marina Fideli, mezzo-soprano
Luigi Arditi, Il bacio
Myrtò Papatanasiu, soprano
Accompanied by
Thanassis Apostolopoulos, piano
Artistic oversight
Aris Christofellis
€40 (Α’); €25 (Β’); €10 (Concessions)
