![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.criticscorner.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Siegfried-in-Alexanderplatz-2014.jpg\" "\\"Bildquelle-\u00a9-Bayreuther-Festspiele\\"")
<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is always a special occasion being in Bayreuth<\/strong>. The 72,576 (2009) inhabitants \u201cfestival and university\u201d capital of Upper Franconia has long been invested with its own heavy load of history. Being endowed with a magnificent Markgr\u00e4fliches Opernhaus<\/em>, incidentally object of restoration as UNESCO Weltkulturerbe<\/em> since 2013, it was chosen by Richard Wagner<\/strong> as the place where his dream would come true. It was a total and unitary vision about a theatre where his canon of approved works would find a space specially designed to define, in performance terms, his Gesamtkunstwerk<\/em> ideal, respecting its unprecedented unity of concept, poetry, music, as well as philosophical, social, aesthetic and technical challenges. A theatre which, although financed by a king who risked and ultimately lost his kingdom\u2019s financial goodwill pursuing these ideals, would be directed by the composer himself and, after his premature death (Venice 1881) by his family, led by his strong willed widow Cosima, no other than Franz Liszt\u2019s daughter. It was to remain so not only till 1944, when the Festival ended temporarily its existence in the flames of world war II with the additional burden of being one of Germany\u2019s institutions most closely associated with the Nazi regime and Adolf Hitler himself, but also in the era of the so called Neu Bayreuth<\/em>, that dawned over the Green Hill in 1951, providing one of the most interesting \u00abdynastic\u00bb stories in modern history.<\/p>\nFrom Route 66 to Kreuzberg<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n In this sense and with all due respect to Castorf\u2019s DDR<\/em> experience, a regular Bayreuth visitor, joining the Festival from every corner of the globe, is intended to face the Wagnerian creation in its own terms and should not be expected to have run through lengthy producer\u2019s notes in order to realize details referring from USA\u2019s Route 66 and the New York Stock Exchange to the Azeri capital Baku or Berlin\u2019s Alexanderplatz and Kreuzberg, all anyway largely irrelevant to the Handlung<\/em>. We therefore object to this sort of bankrupt Verfremdung<\/em> in our firm belief that facing a composer like Richard Wagner, fully aware of his idea(l)s, methods and aesthetic as well as philosophical aspirations, should be a process of long study, selfless dedication and a considerate underlying humility towards the precious material.<\/p>\n Castorf\u2019s production evidently suffers from insufficient familiarity with the original text and music and limited faith to its tremendous and lasting impact. His few interesting ideas remain unrefined throughout the epos, while his many instances of uncertainty are stated with oppositional aggressiveness towards his own public. So, even his daring staging of this immense cosmological yet deeply human and social drama in 4 totally different topoi <\/em>remains largely unexploited, showing no narrative quality that would at least present his Erz\u00e4hlung<\/em> as conclusive even to his own (let alone Wagner\u2019s) stage action. What perhaps sticks in memory is the imposing scenery materialized with scrutiny by his Serbian B\u00fchnenbildner<\/em> Aleksandar Deni\u0107<\/strong>, by which this production is likely to retain at least some visual reference for collectors of Bayreuth performances on video.<\/p>\n Rheingold without essentials<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The way that the producer handles the work is further revealed in his choice for a total withdrawal of any Personenregie<\/em> in the most intense scene of the opera, that of Alberich\u2019s captivity and curse: despite text\u2019s and music\u2019s dramatic urgency, the interpreters are called to sing lying impassively on their chaises longues<\/em>. Not that the loss to the plot of the suffering Nibelungs helped to alleviate the scene from unnecessary personnel: to the contrary, details of the superimposed action were being filmed by a crew on stage and directly relayed on parallel giant screen, a further distraction of the poor viewer from the concentration to the musical content.<\/p>\n The Soviet and GDR elements <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00abSovietizasion\u00bb of Azerbaijan, after the first oil had been detected near the port of Baku. The Soviet element became more obvious in Siegfried<\/em> with its allusion to some kind of Mount Rushmore that, instead of the American presidents Washington, Jefferson, Th. Roosevelt and Lincoln, depicts the recognizable deities of Communism, i.e. Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. The scenery has a back side referring to Berlin (DDR) Alexanderplatz, complete with U<\/em>– and S \u2013 Bahn<\/em> as well as Post<\/em> signings and a typical shop of the period. The implied lack of consumer products seems to act as a further incentive for Walhall\u2019s female inhabitants\u2019 prostitution. In act 3 for instance, Erda, as a lady of low repute, while joining her pimp Wotan on stage, has her cosmetics removed from her bag by her working colleague, while this allwissende Wala<\/em> furnishes an implied blowjob to Wotan, in her knees and faced with his zippers, both happenings duly projected on the ubiquitous giant screen. But even these \u00abideas\u00bb do not evolve in Castorf\u2019s narration. They remain circumstantial and superficial, with no evident clue. Equally inconsistent remains his use of symbols, such as Wotan\u2019s spear, failing to establish their intended mark, while Siegfried\u2019s sword gives its place to a riffle, by which Fafner, no dragon anymore but a drug dealer instead, is being shot in the back by the not so innocent Siegfried, who furthermore is provided by his woodbird comrade not only with information about sleeping Br\u00fcnnhilde\u2019s \u00a0rock, but also with his (first?) sexual experience, an event transforming Siegfried\u2019s learning of fear in front of the sleeping Valkurie to nonsense, at least as Wagner intended it. As for the love duet it was rather disturbingly accompanied by a \u00a0three – member family of crocodiles. The woodbird was devoured onstage by one of them, before Siegfried freed it from the beast\u2019s teeth.<\/p>\n Even G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung<\/em> in Castorf\u2019s production opens with the Norns, deities of fate, \u00a0extending their prophecies from some basement serving as a voodoo shrine, \u00a0Rhine remains totally absent despite its depiction in text and music, the Gibichung K\u00f6nigskinder<\/em> become \u00abD\u00f6ner<\/a>\u00bb and vegetable entrepreneurs in the backyard of a West Berlin (Kreuzberg) Hochhaus<\/em> and so on. Last but far from least, Br\u00fcnnhilde\u2019s immolation brings a singularly uneventful end of the world \u00a0with even the New York Stock Exchange thrown in for good measure but with no real visual effect corresponding to the apocalyptic power of the music. In sum a handling of Wagner\u2019s ewiges Werk<\/em> in equally boring and infuriating proportions.<\/p>\n The Petrenko and singers compensation<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The tendency to productions which deviate from the Wagnerian archetype or even totally ignore it, as does the current one, \u00a0already obvious in such milestones as the late Christoph Schlingensief\u2019s Parsifal <\/em>or Sebastian Baumgarten\u2019s Tannh\u00e4user<\/em>, has already deprived the Green Hill of many renowned singers, reluctant to appear (anymore) at the Festspielhaus<\/em>. One of the most lamented absences remains the one of Nina Stemme, perhaps the foremost Wagnerian soprano of our time. The fact that Bayreuth does not anymore represent the pinnacle \u00a0of\u00a0 Wagner singing (conducting is altogether another matter thanks to the reassuring commitment of Christian Thielemann) has never been widely accepted as self evident by its followers, so it seems an optimistic sign that, contrary to the spectacle, we have better tidings to report about the musical part of this year\u2019s Ring<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Kirill Petrenko<\/strong>\u2019s indisputable triumph, in connection with his recent appointment as Generalmusikdirektor<\/em> at the nearby Bavarian State Opera,\u00a0\u00a0 established him overnight as a hopefully key figure of the festival\u2019s next steps. It may seem highly risky on his part to have accepted a debut in Bayreuth with the exhaustingly demanding Ring<\/em> cycle, but Petrenko (b. 1972) had already fastidiously done his homework back in 2001, when he had conducted for the first time the Ring<\/em> cycle on 4 consecutive evenings with impressive results during his brief tenure at the S\u00fcdth\u00fcringisches Staatstheater Meiningen<\/em>. The Russian born Austrian conductor with the uneventful presence further raised expectations of an extraordinary competence in a memorable 2013 concert performance of Das Rheingold<\/em>, followed by two<\/p>\n further concerts comprising highlights from the other 3 \u00abdays\u00bb of the Cycle, at Rome\u2019s Parco della Musica. It was an event of enormous drive serving as a test for last year\u2019s first showing on the Green Hill, both events coinciding with the 200th<\/sup> anniversary of Wagner\u2019s birth. Although it took him some time to settle during his first Bayreuth Rheingold<\/em>, at least as transmitted by the Bavarian Radio, his pacing for the 3 following \u201cdays\u201d of the drama was simply magnificent, despite the burden of a highly contestable production and singing considered by many as mediocre.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, if called to summarize the impression of our<\/u> first viewing of the current Ring<\/em> as presented between 10th<\/sup> and 15th<\/sup> August 2014, the verdict would be contained in the triptych unsatisfactory production, well schooled singing and unfussy, seamlessly glorious conducting. Petrenko\u2019s measured, reflective and utterly natural way of unfolding the drama acted as a welcome reminder of what Wagner conducting has always stood for. In his sinewy way, Petrenko managed to provide an attentive ear to dynamics belying the generalized prejudice about the presumably loud Wagnerian orchestra. On the contrary, it remains astonishing what he managed through sensitive pacing, an unerring sense of symphonic argument and an innate feeling for Wagner\u2019s unendliche Melodie<\/em>, keeping the explosions of sound to a minimum and proving a cunning ability for well judged culminations. In all these, but also echoed in singers\u2019 interviews to the Bavarian Radio during the radio broadcasts, one could sense the charismatic operatic conductor, generous to his singers\u2019 limits, but also anxious to establish a homogeneous vocal emission and Textverst\u00e4ndlichkeit<\/em>, in any case not detrimental to the singing line. As for the cast itself, although perhaps not comprising individual stars, it proved as consistent and all round satisfying as one is likely to be reckoned with \u00a0in this world.<\/p>\n Three well integrated and healthy voiced Rhine maidens (Mirella Hagen<\/strong> as Woglinde, Julia Rutigliano<\/strong> as Wellgunde and Okka von der Damerau<\/strong>\u00a0 as Flosshilde) launched\u00a0 our journey, praising the eponymous gold and mocking an unusually strong Alberich. The Kazak Oleg Bryjak<\/strong>, seemed initially somewhat dry – voiced, but soon attained the dramatic and vocal stature of the tragic dwarf, bringing in welcome Neidlinger-isms to his robust vocalism. As his brother, the enslaved Mime who later leads Siegfried and himself to their respective destinies, tenor Burkhard Ulrich<\/strong> excelled in characterful word pointing, his plaintive address to Loge and Wotan being a model of its kind. A characterization that further deepened and grew in stature in the course of Siegfried<\/em>\u2019s initial acts. Loge, the mischievous God of fraud and fire, as impersonated by Norbert Ernst<\/strong> showed evidence of yet another character tenor of distinction, keeping away from expressive exaggeration while contrasting well with Lothar Odinius<\/strong>\u2019s sweet – voiced Froh, a kind of Nordic mythology Apollo. Causing the tempest that forms the rainbow bridge for the Gods to enter their new Walhall residence, Donner is often allotted to a lesser singer. Not here though as the distinguished baritone Markus Eiche<\/strong> proved a strong – voiced and youthful God of lightning and thunder.<\/p>\n For all their worth, though, the other Gods yield to the powerful character of Their father figure Wotan. Sadly deprived of his godly dignity, Wolfgang Koch<\/strong>\u2019s vocal interpretation of this character, so central to the drama, seems to have deepened considerably since his first assumption of it, with text enunciation of the utmost clarity and shaded phrasing, but showing some weakness in the deep end of his vocal range during the Die Walk\u00fcre<\/em> act 2 monologue, which failed to come to life effectively despite Petrenko\u2019s urgent tempo and Koch\u2019s own gift for vivid declamation, so evident in his confident Wanderer in Siegfried<\/em>. What Koch amply deserves is a production more considerate to his considerable stage talent.<\/p>\n As Wotan\u2019s lawful consort as well as Waltraute and 2nd<\/sup>\u00a0 Norn, Claudia Mahnke<\/strong> used her well focused mezzo voice to a warm and noble effect, even without the tonal bloom that ladies from other eras of Wagnerian tradition brought in for Fricka\u2019s\u00a0 Die Walk\u00fcre<\/em> scene. Elisabet Strid<\/strong> was a somewhat fruity Freia and Nadine Weissmann<\/strong> as Erda pronounced the famous warning in an objectively effective way, doing her best to reconcile clear diction with singing line. It is a tribute to her artistic integrity that she kept her singing composure even while implying on stage the performance of acts unspeakable beyond any reasonable doubt, at least in this context.<\/p>\n An unexpected felicity proved the juxtaposition of giants Fasolt and Fafner, the former, sung \u00a0by Wilhelm Schwinghammer<\/strong> in warm – toned, fine basso cantante<\/em> legato for this lovelorn, softhearted giant, contrasting nicely with the latter\u2019s black voiced greediness in Sorin Coliban<\/strong>\u2019s sturdy portrayal. The Bucarest – born bass\u2019s tone seems to have grown darker since his early bass<\/a>\u2013baritone<\/a> days, back in 1996,\u00a0 when he \u00a0had the chance to perform the title role in Don Giovanni<\/em> by Mozart, in a unique production directed by the famous Italian bass Ruggero Raimondi<\/a>, at the Athens Megaron Moussikis Concert Hall.<\/p>\n The nearly perfect trio of singers who engendered act 1 of Die Walk\u00fcre<\/em> was a further unalloyed vocal pleasure of this Ring<\/em> cycle. Tenor Johan Botha<\/strong> and soprano Anja Kampe<\/strong>, \u00a0as the W\u00e4lsung<\/em> lovers, brought blissfully euphonious lyricism to their overpowering love music. Both of them though rose also with sufficient power to individual tasks, such as Siegmund\u2019s act 1 dramatic narratives and Sieglinde\u2019s act 3 \u201cO h\u00f6chstes Wunder<\/em>!\u201d. Kwanchul Youn<\/strong>\u2019s already widely known Hunding enlarged this unpleasant character\u2019s appeal by purely musical means.<\/p>\n The only female dramatis persona<\/em> appearing in all three days of the Ring<\/em> is Wotan\u2019s beloved daughter Br\u00fcnnhilde, requiring a dramatic soprano combining extended vocal range, considerable stamina and declamatory power, but also reserves of youthful lyricism. In this respect the Bayreuth Festival had the fortune of hiring Catherine Foster<\/strong>. Once past her initial \u201cHojotoho<\/em>\u201ds of Die Walk\u00fcre<\/em>, the British soprano met most of these requirements, excepting perhaps the cruelly exposed, and incidentally missed, concluding note to Siegfried<\/em> (but then Frida Leider no less considered the Siegfried<\/em> one as the most tricky of all Br\u00fcnnhildes, in spite of the role\u2019s short timing). Foster rose mostly to the occasion through singing of remarkable steadiness and warmth, accordingly solemn in the Todesverk\u00fcndigung<\/em>, defiant and tender in her duets with Siegfried, moderate in histrionics for G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung<\/em>\u2019s act 2 vengeance oath and with ample reserves for a dignified Immolation scene.<\/p>\n Siegfried acquires the degraded Valkyrie through\u00a0 Mirella Hagen<\/strong>\u2019s benevolent intervention in form of a silver – voiced and extravagantly costumed Woodbird. As the fearless hero, handsome and reliable tenor \u00a0Lance Ryan<\/strong> brought, besides a somewhat tight vocal emission, welcome experience to this difficult and stentorian role. Attila Jun<\/strong> did not make us forget the towering performance of Hans-Peter K\u00f6nig as Hagen, but he managed better than many in a not too crowded global family of the basso profondo<\/em> category. The handsome but generic Gunther of baritone Alejandro Marco \u2013 Buhrmester<\/strong> and the rather plain Gutrune of Allison Oakes<\/strong> corresponded to their more or less weak characters as the Gibichung royal humans. Well organized Valkyries (Gerhilde: Allison Oakes<\/strong>, Ortlinde: Dara Hobbs<\/strong>, Schwertleite: Nadine Weissmann<\/strong>, Helmwige:\u00a0 Christiane Kohl<\/strong>, Siegrune: Julia Rutigliano<\/strong>, Grimgerde: Okka van der Damerau<\/strong> and Ro\u00dfwei\u00dfe:\u00a0 Aleksandra Petersamer<\/strong>), a solemn trio of Norns (Okka von der Damerau<\/strong>, Claudia Mahnke<\/strong>\u00a0and Christiane Kohl<\/strong>\u00a0) and the exceptional men\u2019s chorus as well as the select \u00a0orchestra of the Bayreuth Festival rounded up a well considered musical whole. But the journalist\u2019s insidious question to Frau Wagner about loving her great – grandfather\u2019s work \u00a0or not persists. Hopefully it is neither meant nor \u00a0evaded as a merely rhetorical one[4]\u2026<\/p>\n by Kyriakos Loukakos[1] \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is always a special occasion being in Bayreuth. The 72,576 (2009) inhabitants \u201cfestival and university\u201d capital of Upper Franconia has long been invested with its own heavy load of history. Being endowed with a magnificent Markgr\u00e4fliches Opernhaus, incidentally object of restoration as UNESCO Weltkulturerbe since 2013, it was chosen by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[68,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-341","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-festival","8":"tag-bayreuth-2014-the-castorf-ring-and-its-issues","9":"tag-festival-opera"},"yoast_head":"\n<\/a>Conservatism and reformism seemed to struggle ever since the (new) beginning, but the years 1951 \u2013 1966 were dominated by the visionary and sensitive talent of Wieland Wagner, a luminary of sustainable transition to an abstract way of producing his grandfather\u2019s works. It was a time that inspired a whole new generation of Wagner singers gracing the memories of the elders and whetting the appetite of the novices to the Master\u2019s music theatre through their recordings.\u00a0 For nearly half a century after Wieland\u2019s passing, his younger brother Wolfgang led Bayreuth\u2019s fortunes in a way that, although it supported the illusion of continuity, failed nevertheless to establish a guideline of principles for safeguarding Wagner\u2019s legacy. \u00a0These principles should prevent leaving things at the occasional disposal of every new Bayreuth monarch, but should have provided the organizational and institutional means for serving and communicating Wagner\u2019s cause to the world in a uniquely authoritative way. A way which, in the meanwhile, seems to have been further lost among family disputes and provocative but far from genial productions that ultimately deprive Bayreuth\u2019s seal of its foremost privilege, coherence and credibility. Emblematic of this strategic disorientation seems to be the bicentenary production of the Ring des Nibelungen<\/em> by Frank Castorf<\/strong>, Berlin Volksb\u00fchne\u2019s enfant terrible<\/em>, a choice that raised additional doubt, already since its first announcement.<\/p>\n<\/a>It was not without intent that we avoided to attend this Ring<\/em> cycle during the Wagner bicentenary year, since we assumed that we could form a fairer idea about it after the eventual reworking of certain points as part of a constant Werkstatt Bayreuth<\/em> process, such as we already have witnessed in the course of Sebastian Baumgarten\u2019s equally disputed and still running Tannh\u00e4user<\/em> und der S\u00e4ngerkrieg auf Wartburg<\/em>. Assessing others\u2019 experiences of the Ring<\/em> production\u2019s first airing, back in 2013, \u00a0one has to note the way in which Castorf is reported to have reacted onstage to the vociferous disapproval of many spectators after the end of the premiere, a way prone to lead to more generalized conclusions regarding contemporary opera production worldwide. In view of the indirect way for which ever more critics opt in their reviews, in order to avert the public without jeopardizing a sensitive relation to the Festspielleitung<\/em>, as well as the positive initiatives of the current directorial duo of half sisters Mmes. Eva Wagner \u2013 Pasquier and Catharina Wagner (especially its courageous coming to terms with the Nazi past, their offer of performances for public viewing or the equally welcome children\u2019s opera project), one cannot nevertheless avoid to mark the absence of strategic policy for the Bayreuth Festival to regain its status as referential to the Wagner research and performance, a goal so diligently served in the course of 35 seasons by the Rossini Opera Festival in the historic little town of Pesaro, incidentally the cradle of Barbiere<\/em>\u2019s composer. This strategy should be urgently formed in an impartial and deeply considered way, where questions about loving Wagner (or not), such as the one posed to Catharina Wagner in a Thalia Festspiel \u2013 Magazin interview[3], should be irrelevant and indisputable, as Wagner is not only Bestandteil<\/em> of the great German culture but also part\u00a0 of the world cultural heritage as well.<\/p>\n<\/a>The main issue that Frank Castorf\u2019s Ring<\/em> production raised in an almost dramatic way is a well known one in our operatic reality, i.e. whether anybody should be entitled to impose on the Wagner (or for that reason any other\u2019s) works one\u2019s own views, if these views ascertain little coherence or even relevance to the works themselves, and that irrespective of the (financing) public\u2019s dissent. And, further, whether a festival, so special as indisputably the Bayreuth one has been for more than a century, should endanger its global status by so overtly overlooking its primary cause of establishment, \u00a0that is the presentation of Wagner\u2019s works in ways conforming to his explicit intentions. Lastly what could be evaluated as an ethical matter is whether Wagner\u2019s own descendants should host so provocatively alienating \u00a0an adaption of his plots in \u201ctheir\u201d theatre, long considered a Mecca like destination for Wagnerites all over the Planet.<\/p>\n<\/a>Unsuspected readers should be warned that Castorf\u2019s \u00a0Das Rheingold<\/em> depicts no Rhine at all (just a swimming pool caricature), no Walhall, no oppressed Nibelungen<\/em>, let alone aspects of divinity as a noble albeit not flawless identity of the Gods. The superimposed action takes place in a motel of the emblematic Route 66 of the USA, running between Chicago and Los Angeles \u201cover two thousand miles all the way\u201d, with morally questionable (Rhine)maidens inhabiting the ground floor.\u00a0 Alberich is just a loser playing with his duck toy, obviously meant as some kind of psychoanalytical allusion. As for the \u201cGods\u201d, they live upstairs and form part of the most decadent Luben Proletariat<\/em> with no moral inhibitions whatsoever, as Wotan is being introduced to the public lying in bed not only with his wife Fricka but also with her sister Freia. As if that were not enough, even the venerable Ur<\/em> \u2013 Goddess of the Earth Erda becomes a prostitute as well and is implied to have sexual intercourse with Wotan almost on stage during what was meant by Wagner to be the entrance of the Gods in Walhall!<\/p>\n<\/a>The plague of live video projection persisted in Die Walk\u00fcre<\/em>, at least as soon as Siegmund launched his act 1 narrative. Gradually we became accustomed to the disturbing procedure of crew members unfolding a veil screen at any moment of the action, in order to impose Soviet (and\/or soviet like) footage recalling the 27 April – 11 May 1920 Red Army<\/p>\n
\n
\n[1] First published on www.critics-point.gr
\n<\/a>[2]Music and Lyric Theatre critic Kyriakos Loukakos is considered to be a leading vocal connoisseur in Greece. He is an attorney at law and a Dr. Juris of the Cologne University. In 1991 he joined the Greek Ministry of Home Affairs as a member of its Strategic Policy Unit and, as of 1998, he is a senior investigator at the Quality of Life Department of the Greek Ombudsman\u2019s Office. But music has been his lifelong passion, leading to the formation of his own extensive archive of records and privately recorded performances on several kinds of sound carriers. Therefore, from 1994 to 2010 he has commented and presented almost every opera feature for Greek Radio 3, including innumerable EBU direct relays and deferred transmissions, as well as contributing an extensive series of vocal artists\u2019 and conductors\u2019 portrayals. In 1997, commemorating the 20th<\/sup> anniversary of her passing, he presented a 28- hour step-by-step biographical radio homage to Maria Callas and the total output of her recorded roles, for the first time as a whole in radio chronicles. He also reported for the ERT WORLD TV cultural program \u201c9+1 Muses\u201d.
\nSince 1997 he is the music critic of the Sunday edition of the Athens daily journal \u201cI AVGI\u201d. He has provided texts for practically every major musical institution of his country (Athens Megaron Concert Hall, Athens Festival, Thessalonica Megaron Concert Hall, Greek Parliament Foundation, Athenaeum International Cultural Center, European Cultural Centre<\/em> of Delphi,<\/em> etc.) as well as serious cultural magazines (Peritechno, Odos Panos, To dendro, Classical Music, as well as and for the bimonthly periodical ILIAIA). He further supervised a\u00a0 CD-set edition of 7 complete operas in rare archival recordings featuring distinguished soprano Vasso Papantoniou. In 2011 he managed extensive bilingual texts and overall supervision to a lavish 4-cd set, issued by\u00a0 \u201cThe Friends of Music Society\u201d of the Athens Megaron Concert Hall and devoted to hitherto unpublished recordings from the archive of the late (mezzo) soprano Arda Mandikian, a close collaborator of Benjamin Britten and Sir Peter Pears and the Dido in both the first ever complete performance of Berlioz\u2019s Les Troyens<\/em>, in Oxford (1950), and the subsequent first complete recording of its second part, Les Troyens a Carthage<\/em>, under the baton of Hermann Scherchen. The set was favorably reviewed by such prestigious international periodicals as International Record Review, Opera magazine, The Record Collector and Classical Recordings Quarterly and was accorded the 2012 \u201cGina Bachauer International Foundation\u201d Record Prize. Since 2011 Dr. Loukakos has further reported regularly, in Greek and in English, for the e-magazine for drama, dance and music critique www.critics-point.gr<\/a>, an activity he now refreshes through his new e-magazine address www.criticscorner.gr<\/a> .
\nAs of January 2018 he is Honorary President of the Greek Drama and Music Critics Association, a Union established in 1928 and a member of the International Association of Theatre Critics, operating under the auspices of UNESCO, whose Executive Committee he duly presided for 4 consecutive terms (2005 – 2018). Since 2013 he is Secretary General of the \u201cMaria Callas Scholarships Society\u201d and, in 2015, he enrolled as a Member of the \u201cCitizens Movement for an Open Society\u201d and of the \u201cAthens Conservatory\u201d\u00a0 Society.
\n[3] Bayreuth 2014, page 18.
\n[4] All photos by courtesy of Bayreuth Festival Press Office<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"