One of the most popular operas of the French repertory, Werther by Jules Massenet returns to the Greek National Opera from April 11. Massenet masterfully evokes the poetic nature of the idealist Werther and of Charlotte, a young woman trapped by social convention. Massenet’s opera follows its own rules, with essential departures from the original text; it was hugely successful and was translated into numerous languages.

The story of the star-crossed lovers described by Goethe’s original novel, inspired the French composer to pen a score of great lyricism and rare tenderness, with grand dramatic outbursts. The production is directed by acclaimed theatre director and President of the Athens Academy Spyros Evangelatos. Ilias Voudouris is conducting. 

M U S I C

An Easter Concert, attempting to bring closer the aesthetics of western church music with the Byzantine one, will be staged at the Thessaloniki Concert Hall on April 14. The concert will be a musical journey from the West to the East, presenting two different approaches of the Divine. In the first part of the concert, the Symphony Orchestra of Thessaloniki and the Alumni Choir of Anatolia College, will play Anton Bruckner's Requiem. In the second part Kostas and Dimitris Pratsinakis in partnership with a great folk music and Byzantine orchestra, will highlight the magic of Byzantine liturgy music.


E X H I B I T I O N S

The exhibition Pontus Euxinus: Memories from the Greek communities, postcards 1890-1920 presents postcards, photographs and documents from the Black Sea region, which date from 1890 to 1920 and belong to the private collection of Stergios Theodorides; the collection is complete to the degree that allows the study of daily life, communication, education, culture, religious life, activities and buildings of the Black Sea region as part of a unified narrative of place and time.

The ways in which the body recalls past memories and experiences and turns them in artistic creation is the main focus of the exhibition Body Memory, held at the State Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, until May 3. The art work is conceived as a dynamic context where images, discourse, feelings and experiences are structured; even though it follows its own course, independent of the author’s original intentions. Collective memory embodied in an art work often revokes controversial issues referring to people and events that still provoke intense debates today.