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MidAmerica Productions, New York City Peter Tiboris, Founder, General Director and Artistic Director with the generous support and assistance of the Municipality of Syros The Honorable Yannis Dekavallas, Mayor presents
Festival of the Aegean 2008: Great Music and Theater in a Great Place Island of Syros, in the Cyclades, Greece Apollo Municipal Theater “La Piccola Scala”
Members of the Manhattan Philharmonia of New York Columbia Collegiate Chorale of Maryland Peter Tiboris,
conductor James Bingham, guest conductor
A second-generation Greek-American, Mr. Peter Tiboris launched the Festival of the Aegean first on the island of Mykonos. In 2000 he created Opera Aegean,
initially based in Athens as a training and touring company. Since then, Opera
Aegean has offered a summer festival on the island of Syros, presenting
operatic, theatrical, and concert events. In 2005, the festival presented
Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia and in the summer of 2006, Mozart’s
Don Giovanni. There were four concerts in 2006 and eleven in 2007,
including Mascagni’s opera Zanetto and appearances by Taximi, Stratos
Vougas Jazz Quartet, and Human Touch featuring David Lynch. Mr Tiboris has a long and distiguished carreer and has performed with the most respected orchestras in the most reknown concert halls in the world. He is the founder, music director and conductor of the Manhattan Philharmonic.
Performance Schedule
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Wednesday, July 9, 2008 –Opening night of the Festival Apollo Municipal Theater "La Piccola Scala" Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana
(concertante) Peter Tiboris, conductor Santuzza – Eilana Lappalainen, soprano Turridu – Giovanni Battista Palmieri, tenor Mama Lucia – Ellen Rabiner, contralto Alfio – Antonio Stragapede, baritone Lola – Edyta Kulczak,
mezzo-soprano
Thursday, July 10, 2008 Apollo Municipal Theater "La Piccola Scala" Members of the Manhattan Philharmonia of New York and the Columbia Collegiate Chorale of Maryland James Bingham,
conductor Rosa Poulimenou,
soprano Haydn: Te Deum Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music Concerti movements by Handel, Vivaldi, Telemann, Sibelius, Mendelssohn and Haydn
Friday, July 11, 2008 Apollo Municipal Theater "La Piccola Scala" Members of the Manhattan Philharmonia of New York and the Columbia Collegiate Chorale of Maryland Peter Tiboris,
conductor Vivaldi:
Gloria Mozart: Requiem
Saturday, July 12, 2008 – Opera Gala Apollo Municipal Theater "La Piccola Scala" Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana
(concertante) Peter Tiboris,
conductor
Sunday, July 13, 2008 Apollo Municipal Theater "La Piccola Scala" Members of the Manhattan Philharmonia of New York and the Columbia Collegiate Chorale of Maryland Peter Tiboris,
conductor Vivaldi:
Gloria Mozart: Requiem
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, July 16, 17, 18, 2008 Apollo Municipal Theater "La Piccola Scala" Aquila Theatre of New York – The Iliad (Book I) Peter Meineck, director
Saturday, July 19, 2008 Apollo Municipal Theater "La Piccola Scala" Taximi Rebetika from Sweden
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The annual Festival of the Aegean takes place at the Apollo Municipal Theater, aka "La Piccola Scala" in Hermoupolis, the main town of the island of Syros. The building was constructed in 1862-1864 and accommodated the first theatrical performance, La Favorita by Gaetano Donizetti, on October
3, 1864.
The theater was the "home" for hundreds of resident Italians who came for months each summer from Venice and Milano on their way to the Far East. Syros was the midpoint. After the theater was built more and more Italians would stay longer and longer on this beautiful island, and opera performances occurred each summer—Tosca, Il Trovatore, La Boheme, to name a few. Theatrical productions and recitals aso occurred from the 1850s to the early 1900s.
The Italian residents, in the early 1900s, departed the island never to reutrn. The theater was then taken over by the resident Greeks who turned it into a movie house until the early 1960s, after which time it was closed for some forty years until the renovation was concluded in the late 1990s.
The theater was badly damaged by an air raid bombing in 1944 and subsequently fell into disuse. Further, it was to become a target for the military junta who took power in Greece two decades later. With philistine zeal, they determined to eradicate any foreign influence, removing paintings, original boxes and galleries, leaving the theater in a sorry state. Reconstruction work began in the 1980s, and the theater was reopened in July 2000: The velvet seats are back, the ceiling
paintings are impressive, and with them a sense of grandeur has returned. Today four levels of boxes oversee the wooden stage with a width of 18 meters, depth of 9 meters.
The first opera performance in the Apollo—after a hundred years of no opera performances—was Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, produced by the Festival of the Aegean, Peter Tiboris conductor, on July 14 2005.
Ticket
Information
For more information please
call:
In Athens: 30 6932
483079 In Syros: 30
22810 85192 Fax in Syros: 30 22810 85193
Tickets are also sold in
Athens at IANOS bookstore (Stadiou 24) tel: 210 3217917
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