“Light! Oh, Where Is the Light?”

Alternative Stage founding donor

Alternative Stage sponsor: PPC (Public Power Company)

The poetic world of the great Indian thinker Rabindranath Tagore will be unveiled through a unique concert full of rare songs inspired by his poetry. This special event will be presented on the GNO Alternative Stage at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, on Sunday 12 May, at 19:30.

The programme of the concert titled Light! Oh, Where Is the Light? will feature works by Franco Alfano, Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov,  Alfredo Casella, André Caplet, John Alden Carpenter, Jean Cras, Giannis Konstantinidis, Darius Milhaud, Reginald Sweet Karol Szymanowski and Richard Hageman.

This rich and eclectic collection of musical pieces inspired by Rabindranath Tagore's poetry will be performed by a group of experienced and renowned recitalists, consisting of the soloists Lydía Zervanos and Elena Marangou, flutist Natalia Geraki, and pianist Dimitris Giakas.

Rabindranath Tagore: “the Bard of Bengal”

One of the greatest and noblest figures in the history of India, “the Bard of Bengal”, Rabindranath Tagore, was active as a poet, prose writer, playwright, composer, philosopher and painter while also having the honour of being the first non-European who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Furthermore, he stood out for his social reform action in the Indian independence movement and was a tireless traveller who visited more than 30 countries, including Greece in a historic visit in 1926.

Apart from the over 2,000 songs he composed himself, his poetry has been a source of inspiration for many composers the world over, including the Greek composer Giannis Konstantinidis, who composed the song cycle Songs of Anticipation, and many more, such as the Italians Alfredo Casella and Franco Alfano, the Polish Karol Szymanowski, the American John Alden Carpenter, the Russian Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov and the French André Caplet, who all wrote songs based on Tagore's poetry, translated into English, Italian, Russian and German.

The production “Light! Oh, Where Is the Light?” is part of the GNO Alternative Stage’s unit of programming titled “MUSIC THEATRE DAYS”, which falls under the ACT “FESTIVAL EVENTS OF THE GNO ALTERNATIVE STAGE 2024-2025” (MIS 6002467) with code 2024ΕΠ08570049 (Priority: “Fostering regional social cohesion through the enhancement of mechanisms and infrastructure to support employment, education, health care and socioeconomic inclusion” of the programme “Attica 2021-2027”) and is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and National Resources.