(Another) Winter Journey

GNO Learning & Particiaption Lead Donor

Co-OPERAtive, the first intercultural youth opera hub in Europe, will complete its fifth year by presenting a new music theatre performance titled (Another) Winter Journey—a contemporary piece inspired by Franz Schubert’s emblematic song cycle Winterreise. The performance will feature a mixed group of Athenian teenagers and unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors who were involved in the educational programme, alongside the GNO Intercultural Choir.

Through Panos Iliopoulos’ musical adaptation and Vasilis Vilaras’ directorial eye, the performance portrays the inner journey of adolescence, engaging in a conversation with universal questions: fear, loneliness, hope, loss, first loves, and change. Vasilis Vilaras and Lemonia Gianniri’s dramaturgy weaves a mosaic of confessions, songs, movements, and experiences, creating a non-linear narrative, in which Schubert’s adapted music serves as an inner mechanism of memory and transformation. The stage is turned into a place where different languages and cultures meet, where adolescent participants narrate, sing, and dance their own stories, while the Intercultural Choir of the GNO serves as a collective consciousness: sometimes urging, other times advising, and at times looking back on the past, while always hoping. Ilias Hatzigeorgiou is responsible for the movement, Pavlos Thanopoulos created the sets and costumes, and Vasia Attarian designed the lighting. Markellos Chryssicos conducts the performance on the harpsichord. The music workshops were led by Markellos Chryssicos, the theatre workshops by Giota Kouitzoglou, and the dance workshops by Ilias Hatzigeorgiou.

The performance was born out of a months-long creative process, involving teenagers from various social and cultural backgrounds who met weekly at the GNO rehearsal rooms to share, experiment, and ultimately create a joint project. The educational programme Co-OPERAtive was launched in 2019, and in that same year, it was awarded by the European Organization FEDORA. Since then, it has continued to evolve and expand its network of collaborations, aiming to bring opera closer to young audiences while highlighting the cultural diversity of modern Athens and the significance of social cohesion.

(Another) Winter Journey is a performance that concerns us all: all those who once were teenagers, all those who feel like teenagers, those raising children, and, of course, those who believe in the power of art as an act of inclusion and acceptance.

Co-OPERAtive was implemented in close collaboration with Kinoniko EKAV, European Expression, Home Project, and Zeuxis.

The performance will be fully accessible providing an inclusive audiovisual experience for all audiences in collaboration with ATLAS E.P. In this context, there will be designated seats for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing and use Greek Sign Language, places for those who rely on captions (CAPS) covering the entire audio channel, as well as seats for individuals who are blind or have limited access to the visual channel of communication and use the audio description (AD) service. Guide dogs for the visually impaired will also be permitted.

The full accessibility services for this production are funded by the Ministry of Culture, as part of the project“SUB.1.1.6 Attracting 65+ individuals and persons with disabilities to events of the Greek National Opera”. This project is implemented as part of the “Greece 2.0 - National Recovery and Resilience Plan” with funds from the European Union-NextGeneration EU.

In collaboration