Quality festival in June
The Nafplion Festival, organized again this year by acclaimed pianist Yiannis Vakarelis, has once more succeeded in maintaining its high standards. This is one of the few Greek festivals that deals with only one kind of activity, namely music, and always takes place at the same time, the last 10 days of June. Keeping its distance from any populist activities, the Nafplion Festival has easily built up a fine reputation and garnered its own audience. This year, a number of well-known musical personalities will appear in the festival: mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza, pianist Bruno Leonardo Gelber, the Virtuosi di Praga, the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Vakarelis himself, among others. On Thursday, June 20, Teresa Berganza opens the festival along with pianist Juan Antonio Alvarez Parejo. They will interpret works by Vivaldi, Scarlatti, Handel, Rossini, Hahn, Guridi and de Falla. On Saturday, June 21, the Intrarti Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Juan De Udaeta, will perform works by Joaquin Turina, Joaquin Rodrigo and Manuel de Falla, accompanied by soprano Esperanza Fernandez and guitarist Maria Guzman. June 22 will be an evening dedicated to Spanish dance with the Joaquin Ruiz Flamenco Company. On Monday, June 23, violinist Sasha Rozhdestvensky and pianist Thanassis Apostolopoulos will interpret works by Sergei Prokofiev, Pericles Koukos, Maurice Ravel and Astor Piazzolla, while on Tuesday, June 24, soprano Mara Thrasyvoulidou and tenor Dimitris Siganos will interpret songs from Broadway musicals accompanied by pianist Giorgos Niarchos. On Wednesday, June 25, soprano Julia Souglakou, pianist Dimitris Yakas and actress Magda Mavroyianni will perform the musical/theatrical composition «Alma Maller: Her Life and Work,» while on Friday, June 26, cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Yiannis Vakarelis will interpret works by Brahms, Bloch and Shostakovich. On June 27, a performance by the Borodin Quartet and pianist Adrien Meisch will take place, while on June 28 the soloists of the Gewandhaus Orchestra with pianist Jean Louis Steuerman will interpret works from Bach. Finally, the festival will end with a performance by the Virtuosi di Praga accompanied by pianist Bruno Leonardo Gelber on June 29. Performances will take place in various locations, some at the Palamidi Castle, and others in the Aghios Georgios and Arvanitias squares or at the Trianon and Vouleftiko centers. At the Vouleftiko, a photography exhibition on Maria Callas, from Giancarlo Tanzi’s personal archives, will also be on display from June 21 to June 29.
