Operetta povera video-performance is based on a concept of constructing and deconstructing a pictorial frame for popular excerpts of the genre to highlight the surrealistic and undermining world lying under the surface of the stereotypical beauty and convenient nostalgia, through which we are used to read operettas.

Arias and duets from Greek and Viennese operettas such as Thelo na do ton Papa! (I Want to See the Pope!), I kori tis kategidos (The Daughter of the Storm), O Vaftistikos (The Godson), Picnic, Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow), I Apachides ton Athinon (The Apaches of Athens), are presented in the form of operetta povera, with modest means, materials reused in a different context, and with sets and costumes from earlier GNO performances, in a surrealistic take.

The Greek National Opera opens a new cycle of artistic programming. The first Online Festival titled EXIT: SPRING and curated by Artistic Director Giorgos Koumendakis spreads its wings into the digital world and invites us to a new viewing and listening experience. From 17th May to 30th June 2020, eleven new music, opera, operetta and music theatre video-performances created during the pandemic, as well as one recorded dance performance, come for free to our homes via www.nationalopera.gr, GNO’s Facebook page and GNO YouTube channel. All Festival video-performances revolve around the themes of the anticipation of spring, the rebirth of nature and the coming of the new. The Festival is made possible by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) [www.SNF.org] to enhance the Greek National Opera’s artistic outreach.

 Responding to the challenges of the time, the Greek National Opera develops new means of creation and presentation of its work beyond the ordinary. While experiencing a new reality, whose end none of us can predict, we turn the forced absence from our standard artistic activity to a new creativity beyond norms and limitations. The first Online Festival EXIT: SPRING aims at offering friends of the GNO in Greece and across the world, a “digital” exit to this year’s lost spring, through music, dance and lyric art video-performances.

The Greek National Opera would like to thank all the artists and artistic bodies, who granted their rights for free, in order to make sure that the broadcast of these video-performances of the festival will be free to the public, in this difficult time.