MADRE SALONICO (Leon A. Nar) Musical Theatre Athens 2025 Eleni Ouzounidou, Leonardos Batis

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: Madre Salonico  
• Composer: Adaptation of Sephardic songs, original music: Martha Mavroidi  
• Libretto: Leon A. Nar    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: Greek National Opera Alternative Stage, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, Athens Greece  
• Recorded: April 2025
• Type: Staged Opera Live
• Singers: Eleni Ouzounidou, Leonardos Batis
• Conductor:   
• Orchestra: Smari Musical Ensemble  
• Stage Director: Victor Arditti   
• Stage Designer: Maria Panourgia  
• Costume Designer: Maria Panourgia  
• Lighting Designer: Melina Mascha  

Information about the Recording

• Published by: GNO TV  
• Date Published: 2025  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs, othersubs  

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

Who still speaks “Ladino”, the mother tongue of the Thessaloniki Jews? Who still sings Sephardic songs? The music theatre production Madre Salonico, written by the distinguished author Leon A. Nar, brought to the GNO Alternative Stage a work presented in a language on the brink of extinction, along with songs from Jewish communities in the Mediterranean, intending to bridge the present with the past as a gesture of memory.

The work, using a blend of “Ladino” (the Spanish-Hebrew language of Sephardic communities) and Greek, was showcased at the GNO Alternative Stage, through the eyes of the experienced director Victor Arditti. Martha Mavroidi adapted the Sephardic songs and created the original score, while the musical ensemble Smari performed them alongside Fotis Siotas. The cast features Eleni Ouzounidou and Leonardos Batis.

Madre Salonico: The ultimate refuge of Thessaloniki’s Sephardic culture

The new production of the GNO Alternative Stage, Madre Salonico, delves into a theme that has extensively preoccupied prose literature and cinema but remains unaddressed by domestic theatre. This piece, a means for collective self-awareness and reflection on the traumatic events of Soa, transcends the limitations of historiography, transforms into an artistic testimony, and approaches the trauma, creating a fertile ground for understanding and assimilating the historical past.

“What is the homeland of the Sephardic people?” Τhat’s what the protagonist, Ido Mordoch, a resident of New York, a third-generation Sephardic man, and grandson of the famous Zana, is wondering about. The work measures itself against the challenge of a language that is on the verge of extinction, a language that not only served as a means of communication but also embodied the very expression of the Sephardic people’s identity, their collective soul, and their history. Some of the Sephardic songs sung by Zana during the performance (such as “Misirlou” and “Pou na vro gyneka na sou miazi”) are already widely known among the audience from their Greek versions.

The protagonists of Madre Salonico search for their lost origins while striving to trace the thread connecting the past to the present through language and singing. Understanding and interpreting Thessaloniki’s traumatic past by reinscribing historical sources and testimonies into an artistic framework enhances their connection to the present.

Leon A. Nar, who has penned the text of the performance, notes: “The work will give audiences the chance to follow Zana’s footsteps and – why not – identify with her. This is because she embodies not only the identity of an immigrant and victim of contemporary racism but also that of success, glory, and the unfulfilled. In theatre, of course, there’s also devising; fiction is ultimately creation. Is it really impossible for a work of fiction to be examined through rational thought and experiential science? The answer is not obvious, yet we must agree that no play and no literary work, no matter how “devised” they may be, can be developed in a historical void. Devising itself moves within a historical context”.

Quoted from GNO TV

 

 

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