Thursday, February 11, 2010

Step back in time: excavating for Kostas Paskalis


Parsi did some digging in his archive and after some epic battles with dust and spiders, found a few interesting files regarding the late Kostas Paskalis.

In the photo above, the cover of a Greek opera magazine that had had a brief career back in the 90's and only made a few issues (just 8-9, I think). This issue, dated December 1995, was dedicated to the new production of Simon Boccanegra at the Greek National Opera, directed by Kostas Paskalis and with Paskalis as Simon. Next to Paskalis on the cover, George or Georg or Giorgio Pappas (I have seen all possible versions of his name on cast-lists).

Among others, the magazine featured a translation of the entry
about Kostas Paskalis of the New Grove Dictionary of Opera ...

...but also a list of the previous productions of Boccanegra that had been staged in Athens till 1995 (Stagione 1962/3 with Nicola Moscona as Fiesco and John Modenos as Simon and Summer of 1974 at the Odeon Of Herodes Atticus with Kostas Paskalis and Nicola Zaccaria)...

...a short interview with Kostas Paskalis & some wonderful pics from the 1974 production of the Athens Festival...


...and a few b&w photos of the 1995 production...



That was not the only relic I located in the parsi-dungeons. What is probably Paskalis' last interview - an interview to Sotiris Kakisis for the Greek newspaper TO VIMA, contains some extra rare shots of the legendary baritone, just a few months before his death.


The Tribute to Kostas Paskalis, published on February the 9th 2008 and containing obituaries, bio, and plenty of sound files, photos and download links is always available here, an exquisite CD (transferred from an old LP) with recordings of his Verdi roles is downloadable here (and highly recommended) and a few splendid videos of Paskalis as Simon, Iago, Macbeth etc can be seen on youtube.

RIP Maestro.



2 comments:

Willym said...

I only had the joy of seeing him once - long before Parsi was even born - in Otello at Covent Garden with Vickers and Kabaivanska. It was a trio of giants!

Thank you for the lovely tribute.

Anonymous said...

for Kostas Paskalis fans http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adpkU_kV8j4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NJsEW0Y_UI

he is great on both!!!