Greek National Opera, season 2008-9 announced

The 2008-9 season of the Greek National Opera has been announced earlier today.


Tannhäuser at the SF Opera


What stands out among the productions is definitely the Tannhäuser that the Athens Megaron is gonna host in January 2009. It´s the famous San Francisco Opera production by Graham Vick that received excellent reviews a few months ago.

Watch a short clip from the SF Opera performances at the SF Opera website.

Next on my list would be the productions of Rusalka and I Puritani.
This is gonna be the first Rusalka ever in Greece and it's gonna be a co-production of the Greek National Opera and the Opéra de Nice (Mata Katsuli and Marita Paparizou are confirmed).

Mariola Cantarero

Regarding the Puritani (the first time ever that Bellini's masterpiece was presented in Greece was just a couple of years ago in Thessaloniki with Elena Mosuc as an impressive Elvira), it will be a co-production of the Greek National Opera and the Nederlandse Opera. At the Nederlandse Opera the premiere will take place on February the 4th 2009 and will have a run of 9 performances till March and it will be presented in Athens by the end of April 2009. What we know by now is that the stage director will be Francisco Negrin, the conductor will be Giuliano Carella (who was also the conductor at the Thessaloniki Puritani/February 2006), sets by Es Devlin, costumes by Louis Désirée and for the performances of De Nederlandse Opera, the cast is headed by Mariola Cantarero, Eric Cutler and Riccardo Zanellato.

In a co-production with the Théâtre Impérial de Compiègne, the world premiere of the opera "Cyrano & Roxane" by Stavros Xarhakos will be celebrated in Athens in April 2009.

Other operas that have been announced: A new production of Rigoletto (with Dimitris Platanias, a baritone we like a lot), the reprise of last year's Boheme in the Graham Vick production, Alexander von Zemlinsky's Eine florentinische Tragödie, in a new production together with last year's Gianni Schicchi, a new production of Franz Von Suppé's Die schöne Galathee, a co-production of Astor Piazzolla's beautiful work "María de Buenos Aires" together with the Teatro Nacional Cervantes of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

María de Buenos Aires

Finally, Donizetti´s Rita (March 2009) on double bill with I Pagliacci (???) and Anna Bolena (October 2008) are gonna be presented semi-staged. The Bolena won't stand many chances as the Cast includes veteran singers and some quite bad indeed (Aggelopoulou and Beris) while Jenny Drivala will sing Anna and Dimitri Kavrakos will sing Henry...

Last but not least, our own private mega-spectacle Arena, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus is gonna host in June 2009, a new production of AIDA in collaboration with the Arena di Verona.

ps. 3 Recitals have also been announced for the 2008-9 Season: Elena Mosuc, Dimitra Theodossiou and Cristina Gallardo Domás.