FULL THE MASTER BUILDER (Manolis Kalomiris) Athens 2023 Konstantinos Klironomos, Maritina Tabakopoulou, Danai Kondora

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: The Master Builder or Ο ΠΡΩΤΟΜΑΣΤΟΡΑΣ  
• Composer: Kalomiris Manolis   
• Libretto: Based on the eponymous tragedy written by Nikos Kazantzakis  
• Venue & Opera Company: Olympia City Music Theatre Maria Callas, Athens, Greece  
• Recorded: January 27, 2023
• Type: Concert Live
• Singers: Konstantinos Klironomos, Maritina Tabakopoulou, Danai Kondora, Maria Vlachopoulou, Ares Argyris, Petros Magoulas
• Conductor: Zoe Tsokanou  
• Orchestra: Symphony Orchestra of the Municipality of Athens  
• Chorus: Choir of the Municipality of Athens  
• Chorus Master: Stavros Beris  
• Stage Director:   
• Costume Designer:   
• Lighting Designer: Pericles Mathiellis  

Information about the Recording

• Published by: Olympia City Music Theatre  
• Date Published: 2023  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: yessubs, othersubs  

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

Based on the eponymous tragedy written by Nikos Kazantzakis, “The Master Builder” is one of the most charcteristic samples of Manolis Kalomiris writing. Full of powerful symbolisms in a political, cultural and ideological level, this work was presented for the first time in 1916, reflecting the tempest of that historical era during which it was written. At the same time, it sums up Kalomiris’s vision for the creation of a National Music School.

O Protomastoras, lit., the master craftsman, the head of a construction guild; here, the master mason (the main personage in Kazantzakis’ tragedy. O Protomastoras (1908), celebrated in the folksong The Bridge of Arta, according to an old legend, must sacrifice his young wife to the bridge in order to secure the stability of its construction, which “… all day, they were building it, each night it fell down”. In Protomastoras, Kalomiris consciously uses the Wagnerian leitmotif technique, with the intention, however, to create an opera of “Greek character”. The composer has compiled and published an index of the leitmotifs of O Protomastoras as well as for two other operas: Anatoli and Konstantinos Paleologos.

Kazantzakis, Nikos (1883 – 1957), a towering figure of international reputation in Greek literature. He initially faced great hostility in Greece for his use of an extreme form of the demotic in his writing, as well as for his political and philosophical beliefs. Kazantzakis travelled extensively throughout Europe and Asia, later writing his impressions. He translated into modern Greek Homer’s Iliad, Dante’s Divina Commedia, wrote an Odyssey (a sequel to the Homeric one, consisting of some 33,000 lines), drams, epic poetry, novels, etc. Kalomiris used two tragedies of Kazantzakis, the Protomastoras and Konstantinos Paleologos as the subjects of his first and last operas.
[Notes by Maria Voelker-Kamarinea]

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