Born in Athens. He studies at the Department of Music Studies of the Ionian University. He holds diploma in horn with honours and first prize. He studied music theory and he has attended lessons at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts (HfMDK). In 2016 he was a member of the El Sistema Greece. He has collaborated with orchestras such as Symphony Orchestra of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, Orchestra of Colours and the Athens Philharmonia Orchestra. Since 2021 he is a permanent musician of the Greek Youth Symphony Orchestra and additional musician of the GNO Orchestra.

Educational workshop for deaf or hard of hearing persons.

Accessible to the participants through interpretation in Greek Sign Language.

This new series of educational activities aims at laying the groundwork for expanding the boundaries of hearing and turning it from a listening experience into a physical one. These educational workshops are aimed at deaf and hard of hearing persons, as well as at those who are part of the deaf community in other ways. The programme’s main educational goals are to reverse the condition of standardized exclusion, to introduce participants into the world of music and sound art, and to create collaborative sound works through collaborative planning and workshop practices. The materials of this venture are vibration, visualization of sound, art history, music theory, and other contemporary technological possibilities. The educational workshops cycle will come complete with a sound work, designed by all the members of the group together.

The workshops are self-contained and participants can join the ones of their choice.

Participation does not require any prior relevant knowledge.

Planning/Implementation: Giorgos Samantas – Dana Papachristou

Artistic collaborator: Orestes Karamanlis

Starts on: 22 October 2022

Day & time: Saturdays, 13.00-15.00 (28/01, 04/02, 11/02, 18/02, 25/02, 04/03, 11/03,18/03, 1/04, 08/04 & 29/04)

Accessibility Sponsor

The GNO Learning & Participation Department relaunches the music, dance and movement workshop cycle in detention centres that strives to promote the importance of artistic education and contact with the arts in penitentiaries, in order to facilitate real communication among prisoners as well as their smooth reintegration into society. The workshops, which will be held on a weekly basis, are aimed at the Female Penitentiary of Eleonas (Thebes), the male wing of Korydallos Penitentiary, and the Special Youth Detention Center in Avlonas. Each of them will come complete with the presentation of the artistic result of the whole creative process.

Dance and Movement Workshops at the Female Penitentiary of Eleonas (Thebes)

Using dance as a means of training and deep non-verbal communication, the participants of the dance and movement workshops will be urged to develop their creativity, acquire basic skills, and experiment. The goal is to set expression free through the group dance process and get acquainted with alternative types of dance (street dance, traditional dances of different countries, intercultural dances, jazz etc.). The workshop will come complete with the presentation of a single dance theatre performance that will put together the original choreographies that will be created by the participants through guided exercises by experienced dancers.

Music Workshops At The Male Wing Of Korydallos Penitentiary

A new series of music workshops will bring creativity and free expression once again to the male wing of Korydallos penitentiary. Through improvisation, participants will experiment with sound and music, will develop performance skills and will co-create new compositions. The workshop will come complete with a concert, in which participants will perform their own music works themselves. The workshop’s main goal is to cultivate creativity, team spirit, and free expression.

Planning/Implementation: Margarita Trikka (dancer, choreographer), Katerina Spyropoulou (dancer, choreographer)

Final performance date: T.B.A.

Music And Dance Workshops At The Special Youth Detention Center In Avlonas

Participants in the music and dance workshops are called upon to take part in a “double” dance and music workshop forming two groups, which will be working at the same time, while also collaborating with each other. Through experimentation and the guidance of experienced dancers and musicians, participants will acquire basic dance, music and performance skills. The workshop will come complete with a music and dance performance, in which the dance group participants will perform their works, dancing to the rhythm of the pieces produced by the music group. The workshop’s main goal is to cultivate creativity, encourage collaborative culture and essential communication among the prisoners, and promote the free expression that comes through the process of dancing and making music.

Planning/Implementation: Ilias Hadjigeorgiou (dancer, choreographer)

The Intercultural Dance Group continues its methodology and movement research by bringing together traditional and contemporary techniques while also highlighting the particularities of the aesthetic of different dance traditions. This season, the main goals are to strengthen the already existing group and give it the chance to incorporate new tools and methods in the way it works on the one hand, and to welcome new members from other dance fields and integrate new influences into the pool of our research process on the other hand.

Planning/Implementation: Polina Kremasta

Assistant to the choreographer: Thenia Antoniadou

Starts on: 31 October 2022

Day & Time: Mondays, 18.00 – 21.00

Date of the performance: Tuesday 30 May 2023 at 20.30, GNO Alternative Stage - SNFCC

*The members of the Intercultural Dance Group will be selected by audition. The open call for the audition will be announced on 5 October.

For a sixth consecutive year, the members of the Intercultural Choir will join their voices to invite different music traditions to a conversation and bring out the immediacy and power of singing. Over the years, the Intercultural Choir has hosted members from Slovakia, Tanzania, New Guiney, Ukraine, Cameroon, Syria, Cyprus, the UK, France, the USA, Kenya, Congo, Iraq and Greece. In this new educational cycle, the Intercultural Choir under the direction of its Mistress Anna Linardou, apart from the expansion of its repertoire with songs from the countries of origin of its members, will attempt to explore voice beyond the form of singing, its relationship with the body, movement and improvisation through works of contemporary composers.

Choir Mistress: Anna Linardou

Assistant to the Choir Mistress/ Piano accompanist: Dimitra Kokkinopoulou

Starts on: 26 September 2022

Day & Time: Mondays, 18.30 – 20.00

Information: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Junior Intercultural Orchestra will be an ensemble of 25 young musicians aged between 16 and 25. By creating this hub-orchestra, the inclusive character of the intercultural amateur ensembles will be further enhanced, giving young musicians the chance to creatively express themselves, develop new artistic codes, and open new channels of communication and collaboration, both among them and between them and the society at large.

Age group: 16 to 25 years

Planning/Implementation: Harris Lambrakis

Starts on: Tuesday, 10 January 2023

Day & Time: Tuesdays, 18:00-20:00

*The Junior Intercultural Orchestra members will be selected by audition. The open call for the audition will be announced on 7 October.

Supported by:

Having completed five years of wandering across the world of music, the GNO Intercultural Orchestra continues its musical journey around the world. Through a multitude of live appearances and a series of collaborations with artists active in the musical tradition of the Eastern Mediterranean, this season, the Intercultural Orchestra introduces its entry into the GNO Sacred Music Festival and plans its participation in a series of other projects that will be conducted in multicultural Athens as well as new collaborations with orchestras abroad. At the same time, it creates the Junior Intercultural Orchestra, as part of its mission.

Orchestra director: Harris Lambrakis

Starts on:

Days & Time: Mondays, 18.00 – 21.00

Information: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Supported by:

The pioneering educational programme Opera Interactively Into Schools for Secondary Education Schools is the continuation of the programme that had been successfully implemented by the Greek National Opera in primary schools from 2012 to 2015. Interactive Opera in Schools, adjusted to the contemporary digital era and the social concerns of today’s teenagers, aims at acquainting young people with the art of opera through their participation in an interactive opera performance.

This school year, Kornilios Selamsis’ opera Offenbach’s La belle Hélène, directed by Yannis Kalavrianos, will be presented live in 85 Junior High Schools across Greece and in a total of 900 schools via online streaming with the help of the Opera Box App. This new performance reintroduces us to the myth of the Helen of Troy from a contemporary perspective while treating issues of gender stereotypes, roles and identities.

Students in the schools that will be visited by the Greek National Opera will have an active role in the programme, enjoying the chance to live up close the unique experience of the making of a performance and get fully involved in it. Under the guidance of the programme’s educators, students will take part in the artistic workshops with the goal of co-creating an original audio, music and visual material that will be integrated into the flow of the performance that will be presented in schools, thus completing the Greek National Opera’s two-day visit there.

Students that will take part in the programme from distance will have the chance to attend the performance digitally and explore the world of opera and music theatre via the educational digital application Opera Box App. Through webinars, the programme’s educators will guide school teachers through the learning goals, will facilitate the understanding of the work that will be presented as part of the programme, and will suggest practices of strengthening creative expression through the school class, as well as methods of creatively using the Opera Box App.

Creative Team

Planning/Implementation: GNO Learning & Participation Department

Coordination manager: Panina Karydi

Educational planning managers: Kiki Kerzeli, Michalis Moschoutis, Kalliroi Papadopoulou, Kristin Sofroniou

Historian/Musicologist: Artemis Ignatidou

Communication manager: Myrsini Vasilopoulou

Offenbach’s La belle Hélène

Opera for teenagers

Score: Kornilios Selamsis

Libretto: Alexandra K*

Director: Yannis Kalavrianos

Sets, Costumes: Petros Touloudis

Choreography/Movement coach: Marianna Kavallieratou

Application can be submitted by 7 October 2022 exclusively via the form you will find here.

The programme is co-funded by the European Union – European Social Fund (ESF) and National Resources (NSRF 2014-2020) through the Operational Programme “Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning”.

Experiential cinema workshop for Junior High School students

Opera Filmmakers, the experiential cinema workshop for Junior High School children comes back for a second year. Participants with a camera at hand will wander the backstage of the Greek National Opera, will unlock the theatre costume and prop rooms, will observe the operation of the mechanisms supporting this grand-scale theatrical stage, and will peep into a ballet, chorus and orchestra rehearsal. And all this, to capture on camera the fascinating secrets hidden in the different stages of the making of an opera performance.

During this process, children will get acquainted with the language of cinema, its means of expression, and the techniques and basic principles of directing. They will also be guided through the selected subject matter and will learn how to draft a screenplay. Moreover, they will be involved in the organisation of the shooting and will share the roles of a film crew before and behind the cameras.

The workshop will be held in 4 meetings of three hours each, on 15, 22, 29 October and 19 November 2022. As part of it, a short film production group will be formed by the participants. The film that will be produced will enter the 22^nd European Meeting of Young People's Audiovisual Creation – Camera Zizanio (03–10/12/2022).

In co-production with the Olympia International Film Festival for Children & Young People

Age group: Junior High School students

Planning: GNO Learning and Participation Department & Olympia International Film Festival for Children & Young People

Coordination manager/Implementation: Nikoleta Leousi

Dates & time:

15 October, 18.00 - 21.00

22 October, 10.00 - 13.00

5 November, 10.00 - 13.00

19 November, 18.00 - 21.00

Applications can be submitted from 1 to 7 October 2022 exclusively via the form you will find here.

Educational Programme Sponsor

Planning/Implementation: Rafi Company

Scientific associate: Sophia Kompotiati

How do we feel when we suddenly look at something we already know in a totally different way? When our perspective of that which is already familiar to us changes?

Through the programme Metamorphoses, curated by the Rafi Music Theatre Company on its first collaboration with the GNO Learning & Participation Department, children of all ages explore the mysteries/hidden secrets of opera, those things that are not obvious about it, sneaking through the cracks of the notes and words to illuminate them in a different way. Through activities that trigger imagination and creativity, workshops, and meetings/discussions with important guest from diverse fields, participants will have the chance to sharpen their eyes and thinking and shed light upon that which is different and unexpected, expanding their artistic horizons through the contact with a groundbreaking art that timelessly praises human freedom.

Don Giovanni

October 2022

An introduction to directing workshop for teenagers

We direct an aria, we explore our creative freedom and the possibilities of different approaches to artistic creation. Mozart’s music, with its timeless power, carries Don Giovanni’s legend across the centuries. Performances, legends, and original stagings have marked its contact with the audience of our time. But how would a teenager in the time of the MeToo movement direct it? How would they approach the libretto and Mozart’s music? Teenagers converse with university professors specialised in gender and identity issues, singers and GNO set designers to present their own version of the opera through DIY music and visual techniques.

Age group: 11-15

Dates & Time: 22 October, 17.00 – 19.00 & 23 October 2022, 17.00 – 20.00

Speakers: Irene Avramopoulou (assistant professor at the Department of Social Anthropology, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences), Chrysa Malliamani (opera singer, soprano)

Don Quijote

November 2022

Movement workshop for children

How can we transform ourselves into a hero or a windmill? Can we dance revolution? Can we turn our body into a fairy tale, an adventure, and talk about the value of heroism and revolt without speaking? How can art become a revolutionary act? A workshop for children who transform into Don Quijotes and windmills, reshaping the power and beauty of dreams, imagination and revolution through dance, music and physical theatre.

Age group: 9-12

Dates & time: 26 & 27 November 2022, 17.00 – 19.00

Speakers: TBD

Les contes d’ Hoffmann

December 2022

“Musical” sculpting workshop

Quite often in the world of opera we should not believe our own eyes! Through the power of singing and music and the theater’s technical possibilities, everything seems magical! How can we transform our own selves? Using the famous Doll Aria from Les contes d’ Hoffmann as a vehicle, we attempt to become dolls ourselves, but also sculptors and magicians through crash courses of operatic magic!

Age group: 6-9

Dates & time: 17 & 18 December 2022, 17.00 – 19.00

Speakers: TBD

Falstaff

January 2023

Creative writing workshop – how to write a miniature-libretto

Giuseppe Verdi and his librettist Arrigo Boito offered a reading of Shakespeare’s masterpiece as a hymn to love, flooded with the colours of the Italian Renaissance, but also darker and more atmospheric than the original. Participants will converse with activists and members of the LGTBQ community about the facets of love in 2022, as well as with the protagonists of this year’s GNO production of the same title in order to draw inspiration and pen their own miniature-librettos.

Age group: 13-15

Days & time: 28 January 2022, 17.00 – 19.00 & 29 January 2023, 17.00-20.00

Speakers: Anna Kouroupou (director of Red Umbrella Athens)

Werther

April 2023

Music letters writing workshop for teenagers

How do we write love letters? Do people write love letters in our time? Starting from wondering about the ways love letters via digital applications are different from 19th-century love letters, this workshop urges teenagers to replace pen and keyboard with notes, as a means of expression.

Age group: 13-15

Dates & time: 1 April, 17.00-19.00 & 2 April 2023, 17.00-20.00

Speakers: TBD

Médée

April 2023

Sound and vocal art workshop for teenagers

The workshop revolves around the most basic and common, yet also most moving musical instrument: the human voice. Par excellence performers of emotions – joy, sadness, anger, hope –, opera singers use notes, their throats and bodies, to express all that can’t be said in any other way. The workshop will attempt at a first introduction to precisely these techniques and methods.

Age group: 13-15

Dates & time: 29 April, 17.00-19.00 & 30 April 2023, 17.00-20.00

Speakers: TBD

Madama Butterfly

June 2023

Music and visual arts workshop for children

How is it to be seen as a foreigner? What does foreign mean? What does it feel like to write

stories, create worlds through the eyes of different cultures? Going through the current

intercultural reality, children will converse with young migrants living in Greece and will

work together with visual artist Filippos Vasileiou. They will transform scenes from the opera

Madama Butterfly, building masks, costumes and stage props with references on diverse

cultures, creating their own unique visual version of the work.

Age group: 6-9

Dates & time: 3 & 4 June 2023, 17.00-19.00

Conducted by: Rafi Music Theatre Company, Filippos Vasileiou (sculptor)

Speakers: TBD

Educational Programme Sponsor

An intercultural opera hub for a mixed group of 30 young Athenians and unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors aged 14-18 from across Attica

After the big success of last year’s Co-OPERAtive, the intercultural opera hub for teenagers returns for one more year. The programme, awarded the 2019 Fedora Education Prize, draws inspiration from opera and comes to prove once again the invincible power of music as a common language that can embrace and bridge cultural differences. Those who will participate in the soon-to-be-formed mixed group of the 30 Athenians and unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors aged 14-18 from across Attica, will be asked to create and present their own performance based on personal and spontaneous expression, synergy and team work.

 Artistic team

Starts on: Monday 7 November 2022

Day & Time: Mondays, 17:30-20:30

Age group: 14-18 years

Final performances: tba

*Participants will be selected by open call which will be announced on 10 October 2022.

Alumni Group

The Alumni Group is created this year for those who have completed their participation in Co-OPERAtive and wish to preserve and deepen their relationship with opera and the artistic creation process. The Alumni Group shall enjoy a series of privileges, including the acquaintance with many theatre-related professions, participation in the making of the workshop’s upcoming production, as well as free attendance of selected performances at the Greek National Opera.

In collaboration 

 Supported by

The successful programme Guitar Express returns this year to the GNO Learning and Participation Department and promises participants new experiences and surprises. With the goal of promoting expression through music and using guitars, voices and songs as its tools, the workshop aims at exploring new paths of knowledge and creativity and at bringing back to the foreground stories and songs from old times, thus becoming a pleasant and relaxing way out of the everyday life routine. The programme includes weekly live music meetings and participants will be given additional material that will help them cultivate their musical perception, study and understand the subject matter, and train themselves in the relaxation of body and mind.

Prior music knowledge is not required.

Planning/Implementation: Kiki Kerzeli

Scientific supervisor: Ioanna Etmektsoglou

Starts: 14 February 2023

Day & Time: Tuesdays, 11.00-13.00

Information: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The new experiential intergenerational educational programme for adults aged 65 and over and their grandchildren aged between 5 and 7 is centered on singing, playing and storytelling. In weekly meetings, the short and long lifelines of the members of the group intersect, with the goal of sharing, communicating and creating a common narrative through words, breaths and notes. Through the valuable tools of speech, music and playing and by making use of their diverse age and social backgrounds, the members of the group, in collaboration with the animators, will wander through a collective creative process aimed at developing solidarity and mutual understanding, fighting exclusion, and enriching the artistic and social experience of all the participants.

Planning/Implementation:

Starts in: January 2023

Day & Time: Mondays, 17.00 - 19.00

Applications can be submitted from 6 to 30 December 2022 exclusively via the form you will find here.

A speech about Luigi Cherubini’s Médée

The art of opera has its roots in ancient Greece. It was invented as a musical/vocal idiom in Florence in 1597, when Duke Ferdinando de' Medici, a generous Maecenas of the arts, set up the committee La Camerata Fiorentina with the goal of tracing the original version of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides’ works, performances of which were regularly held in the palaces of noblemen of the time. Although the originals were never found, the members of La Camerata Fiorentina, after studying Aristotle’s Poetics, discovered that the structure of ancient dramatic plays, apart from recitation, also included music and singing, and so they created a new version of the works, quite close to the original ancient one. They named it after the Greek term, “melodrama”, which is opera’s official name. The first opera, Jacopo Peri’s La Dafne, premiered in Palazzo Bardi in 1597.

The speech will highlight Greece’s influence on opera over the centuries and will be accompanied – with an emphasis on Cherubini’s Médée – by video projections of works by Peri, Monteverdi, Handel, Gluck, Mozart, Rossini, Cherubini, Verdi, Richard Strauss and Ionian composer Paolo Carrer.

Date & time: 27 April 2023, 17.00

Place: VIP Lounge

Free Admission – Advance booking is required from 24 April 2023 via ticketservices.gr

A speech about Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff

Throughout his life, Verdi had a passion for Shakespeare. Inspired by the great English poet, he bequeathed three masterpieces to the operatic repertoire: Macbeth, Otello, and Falstaff. Successfully assimilating the original text into his music to a great extent, Verdi managed to transform the Shakespearean dramas into new compositions. The tension, the vigour, the unadorned, “masculine” compositional music style of Verdi endows Shakespearean characters with an added vitality that makes them seem more real than in prose theatre. The music and the way he handles it create a setting for psychological expression that provides audiences the chance to live out a sublime experience.

The speech – accompanied by video projections– will follow the fascinating story of the composition of these great Verdian works through the composer’s lively and creative correspondence with librettist Francesco Maria Piave (about Macbeth) and poet and composer Enrico Boito (about Otello and Falstaff). We will become witnesses of a give and take process that is much similar to the immediacy of social media in modern age.

Date & time: 4 February 2023, 17.00

Place: VIP Lounge

Free Admission – Advance booking is required from 25 January 2023 via ticketservices.gr.

A dance games workshop for fathers with children aged between 4 and 9

The workshop that was immediately loved by children and fathers comes back even more delightful. This year, Dad…Shall We Dance? will be conducted in two cycles of four meetings, each of which will be dedicated to different dance skills. The goal of the renewed workshop is to illuminate, through the dance figures of fathers with their children, the dimension of the body’s rhythm and movement as a philosophy and a necessary ingredient of everyday life. This year’s programme will set new challenges, since the cycles will come complete with the composition of a short choreography by the younger and older participants.

Age groups: 4-6 & 7-9

Planning/Implementation: Tasos Karahalios (dancer, choreographer)

Dates & Time: 10, 17, 24 & 31 October, 17.30 – 18.30 & 19.00 – 20.30 (Cycle Α), & 7, 14, 21 & 28 November, 17.30 – 18.30 & 19.00 – 20.30 (Cycle Β)

Maximum number of group members: 15

Educational programme sponsor

The exceptionally successful opera production for the whole family The Magic Pillows returns to the Stavros Niarchos Hall to give new life to the dreams of children and grown-ups. On the occasion of the GNO’s enchanting production, once again 10 children aged between 8 and 11 will have the unique chance to get initiated into the magical world of opera, living the singular experience of sleeping over in the Greek National Opera, at the SNFCC, on 12 and 13 November. Backstage exploration, music-motor workshops, getting to know the characters of the work, disguises into heroes inspired by the show, thematic dinner and breakfast accompanied by a small musical ensemble, and story-telling will only be some of the activities, which the children that will spend a night at the Opera will have the chance to enjoy.

Age groups: 8 to 11

Planning / Implementation: Eugene Trivizas & GNO Learning & Participation Department

Dates: 12 & 13 November

Applications can be submitted from 20 to 27 October 2022 exclusively via the form you will find here.

Educational Programme Sponsor

Sleepover's sleep products are courtesy of     

A music-motor education workshop for infants and preschoolers with the accompaniment of live instrumental music from different eras

Opera From The Cradle comes back to the Greek National Opera. Dancing and singing with mom and dad, we will learn to recognize various timbres and styles through the sounds of classical music. Through experiential activities and music-motor games we shall seek hidden treasures in the repertoire ranging from Baroque to the 21st century. Infants and preschoolers shall discover the notions of timbre and style and will get acquainted with classical music and the main families of musical instruments. Moreover, we will learn about how touching awakens the body, and using sound and speech as our guides, we will enhance the contact between infants and their caretakers, and along with it, their confidence.

Age groups: infants from 3 months and not crawling yet (Group A), infants that can crawl and stand up with support (Group B)

Dates & time: 4, 5, 11, 12 February 2023, Group A: 10.00-10.45 • Group B: 11.15-12.00

Planning/Implementation: Dafni Tsiouni (music educator/sound artist), Martha Kloukina (dancer/choreographer)

Applications for Groups A & B can be submitted from 3 to 13 January 2023 exclusively via the form you will find here.

Group C: 1 to 2,5 years of age

Group D: 2,5 to 4 years of age

Planning/Implementation: Dafni Tsiouni (music educator / sound artist), Anna Serkedaki (flutist / music educator)

Dates: 18 February: Baroque • 19 February: Classicism • 4 March : Romanticism • 5 March: 20th-Century Music

Time: Group C 10.00-10.45 • Group D 11.15 – 12.00

Musicians: 18 February: Giorgos Goumenakis (mandolin), Stavros Parginos (cello) • 19 February: Vanessa Athanasiou (violin), Dionysis Vervitsiotis (violin), Elli Filippou (cello), Giannis Athanasopoulos (viola) • 4 March: Krinio Troulou (oboe), Chrysa Grenda (piano) • 5 March: Dimitra Kokkinopoulou (piano)

Applications for Groups C & D can be submitted from 3 to 13 January 2023 exclusively via the form you will find here.

The presence of at least one parent is deemed necessary throughout the duration of the workshop.

Educational Programme Sponsor

3d Bell Opera, the exceptionally successful pilot programme of inter-artistic, multimedia and pedagogical action for Primary Education Schools, continues for a third consecutive year.

This season, the programme expands its boundaries and is not only aimed at schools in Attica but also in the rest of Greece and abroad, under the guidance of composer Alexandros Mouzas.

Through contemporary music theatre practices, 3d Bell Opera aspires to bring educators and primary school students in contact with the fascinating world of music theatre. The goals it has set for this year are to promote creative and critical thinking, cultivate skills and knowledge about the inter-artistic field of music theatre, and also introduce the educators and students that will take part in the programme into the creative process of the making of a contemporary music theatre work titled Drop…I / Ocean…TOGETHER.

The workshops will come complete with a final presentation to the wider audience in the Stavros Niarchos Hall of the Greek National Opera at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in June 2023.

Creative team

Programme design, original score, instrumental ensemble conducting: Alexandros Mouzas

Director, theatrical texts, song lyrics, theatrical training: Anna-Moscha Kambosou

Choreography, movement training: Artemis Ignatiou

Assistant to the choreographer: Afroditi Vervenioti

Vocal and chorus training: Eirini Patsea

Video projections, animation: Spyros Rasidakis

Filming, video editing: Andronikos Dimopoulos

Sound engineering, musical and technological support, sound editing, audiovisual material processing: Fotis Papatheodorou

IT – Interactive music systems, sound engineering: Nikos Kazazis

Singers: Villy Kyriakopoulou (mezzo-soprano), Dimos Vlachos (tenor)

Instrumental ensemble: Vanessa Athanasiou (violin), Dionysis Vervetsiotis (violin), Giannis Athanasopoulos (viola), Alexandros Botinis (cello), Oswald Amiralis (contrabass), Marilena Dori (flute), Grammenos Chalkias (clarinet), Stefanos Dafnis (trumpet), Renato Kousi (trombone), Kostas Seremetis (percussion), Apostolos Palios (piano)

Start of the programme: 5 November 2022

Day & time: Saturdays, 11.00-14.00

Applications can be submitted by 5 October 2022 exclusively via the form you will find here.

Educational Programme Sponsor

Lead Donor of the GNO Learning & Participation Department

Melisma is the new year-long cycle of educational and artistic activities for persons of all ages introduced by the GNO Learning & Participation Department. Its pilot implementation has already started since June 2022 in the wider region of Northern Evia that has been severely affected by the unprecedented wildfires of summer 2021. The project, centered around the villages of Limni and Aghia Anna, focuses on man’s relationship with the natural environment and includes a series of experiential artistic workshops of theatrical expression and creative writing, music, movement, dance, and visual arts, targeted both at already existing and new intergenerational community groups that deal with the customs and traditions of Evia. In the first stage, each workshop will aim at familiarising participants with the key concepts and techniques of each respective art form, and in the second stage, the fertile dialogue and the collaboration between the different art forms will lead to the creation of an original music theatre performance. The performance will be mounted for the first time in Evia in summer 2023, while in September of that same year it will also be presented at the GNO Alternative Stage in the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center.

Theatrical Expression And Creative Writing Workshops

Wonderful improvisations, plenty of games, interaction exercises, narrations and spontaneous writing of stories, poems and songs will be the ingredients of a project aiming at cultivating imagination, communication, collaboration and team building through a creative process. During the workshops, participants will be called upon to discover the practical applications of theatrical expression and creative writing as a free space of artistic expression within a group. In the second phase of the workshops, focusing on man’s relationship with nature, participants will collaborate with the groups of the rest of the artistic workshops (creative movement and dance, music, visual arts) of the Melisma activity cycle to co-create an original theatre performance, in which everyone will actively participate, onstage or backstage.

Visual Arts Workshops

The visual arts workshops revolving around the planning of a theatre performance are targeted at all ages and aim at introducing participants to all the stages of the set and costume design process. Participants will experiment with new and old methods of artistic creation and design, crafting techniques, costume and special theatre effects design, as well as photography and video. The workshop will offer children and grown-ups a creative experience that will give them the chance to come in contact with the world of visual and performing arts.

Creative Movement And Dance Workshops

Creative movement and dance workshops are targeted at all age groups and aim at promoting experimentation with movement through dance exercises, movement games and improvisation. Participants will form three different and complementary practice groups: a teenagers’ group, a women’s group, and a mixed group with persons of all ages. In their meetings, which will be held once a month throughout the project cycle, the groups will improvise through movement, while they will all together explore how an everyday movement can be transformed, through collaboration, into a dance act and a collective composition.

Music Workshops: Orchestral Ensemble, Choir And Hip Hop

The music workshops will be divided into three categories: an orchestral ensemble, a choral ensemble, and a hip hop/rap music workshop for young people and teenagers. The goal of these workshops is to create groups that will converse with the rest of the programme’s workshops, to accompany the original music theatre performance that will complete the Melisma project. The musical and choral ensembles will include musicians and choristers of all ages and levels and with all types of instruments, while the hip hop/rap workshop will motivate young people and teenagers to write lyrics and compose their own music pie

Music Score and Planning & Implementation of Music Workshops: Yorgos Dousos 

Stage direction: Eleni Efthymiou, Marilena Katranidou 

Texts: Eleni Efthymiou, Marilena Katranidou , Giota Kouitzoglou, Theatrical Expression and Creative Writing Community Group

Research: Marilena Katranidou, Giota Kouitzoglou

Dramaturgy: Eleni Efthymiou 

Sets, Costumes, and Planning & Implementation of Visual Arts Workshops: Dido Gkogkou 

Choreography and Planning & Implementation of Creative Movement and Dance Workshops: Polina Kremasta 

Assistant to the directors: Giota Kouitzoglou

Artistic Coordinator of the Workshops: Marilena Katranidou 

Planning & Implementation of Theatrical Expression and Creative Writing Workshops: Marilena Katranidou, Giota Kouitzoglou

Recording of Educational Methodology: Giota Kouitzoglou

Βorn in Tbilisi, Georgia, she trained at the Choreographic Institute of Vakhtang Chabukiani and in Colorado (USA). After being finalist and medalist in competitions, she joined Colorado Ballet, later the Birmingham Royal Ballet and in 2007 the Dutch National Ballet, where she soon became a Principal Dancer. She has performed in prestigious theatres, galas and festivals worldwide. For the role of Marguerite Gautier (La Dame aux camélias by John Neumeier) she was nominated for the Prix Benois de la danse, while in 2020 she was chosen by Dance Europe magazine as “Dancer of the year”. She has performed roles in such productions as José Carlos Martínez’s Le Corsaire (Slovenian National Theatre), Benjamin Pech’s Swan Lake (Rome Opera) and Frida by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa (Dutch National Ballet). Moreover, she danced in Giselle by Eleonora Abbagnato (Teatro Lirico, Cagliari) and debuted in the world premiere of Raymonda by Rachel Beaujean (Dutch National Ballet). She has received numerous awards. She first collaborated with the GNO Ballet in Don Quixote (2022).