Maria Callas and Alexis Minotis – Part I an Engaging Collaboration for a Norma and Medea in Greek Style
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Maria Callas and Alexis Minotis – Part I An engaging collaboration for a Norma and Medea in Greek style Introduction a German-educated stage director who Primadonna assoluta Maria Callas (1923- John C. Bastias had attended the Reinhardt Seminar and 1977) and actor and stage director Alexis become an assistant to Germany’s great- Minotis (1898 or 1900-1990), whose age est interwar director, Max Reinhardt, at placed them one generation apart, both ides. It must indeed be many years since a the Salzburg Festival and the Deutsches delved with great enthusiasm and perse- singer has given so compelling a dramatic Theater in Berlin. Reinhardt was experi- verance into the past of their respective performance”.[1] menting with ancient Greek tragedies theatrical fields. Cretan-born Minotis’ presented in circuses, because they were contribution to the revival of ancient 1. Alexis Minotis and the revival of an- the closest theatrical architectural forms Greek tragedy in the thirties, first as an cient Greek tragedy at the National to their open-air ancient Greek counter- actor and later as a stage director, left its (Royal) Theatre of Greece parts, instead of the closed Italianate Eu- mark indelibly inscribed ropean theatres. in this archetypical theat- It was Politis and Ron- rical art form, while Cal- diris who were responsible las’ contribution to the bel for the revival of ancient canto revival of the fifties Greek tragedy, creating is considered the most what came to be called important element in the “the tradition of the Na- restoration of this early 19th tional Theatre of Greece”. A century musical art form. number of attempts were As the music critic of The known both in Greece Observer (London), Peter and abroad beginning in Heyworth, wrote about the 19th century up to poet Callas’ love of the forgot- Angelos Sikelianos’[3] 1927 ten bel canto operas, when and 1930 Delphic Festivals, he saw the Covent Garden where Aeschylus’s Pro- production of Cherubini’s metheus Bound and The Sup- Medea in June 1959, after pliants were staged respec- she and Alexis Minotis had tively at Delphi. However, already inaugurated their it was stage directors Politis collaboration in Dallas in and Rondiris and the thea- 1958: tre’s general director Costis “Unlike most of her kind, Bastias, who established Maria Callas has never in the thirties a systematic, been content to subsist on theatrical tradition that be- a diet of Butterflys and Aid- sides the Athenian Odeon as; her singing is essentially of Herodes Atticus, dared too creative for her to be to use for the first time satisfied with mere repeti- since antiquity the hard- tion of well-worn successes. Epidaurus, Ancient Theatre, 19 June 1960: to-reach ancient theatre of During the past few years Actor and stage director Alexis Minotis as Oedipus Epidaurus in 1938, present- her search for new fields in Euripides’ The Phoenician Women ing Sophocles’ Electra, to an to conquer has led to the audience of 2500! revival of a number of almost forgotten As it seems, both Callas and Minotis par- It is at this time that Minotis becomes works, and notably those lying in that ticipated in revivals of forgotten theatri- Greece’s top actor, especially after the shadowy and deserted trough between cal wonders before they even met. Mino- National (Royal) Theatre’s 1939 tour of the decline of eighteenth-century opera tis developed his acting skills under the Oxford, Cambridge, London, Frankfurt seria and the rise of Verdi and Wagner. guidance of stage director, Fotos Politis,[2] and Berlin, in June and July, two months […] Madame Callas is much nearer to of the National Theatre of Greece, from before World War II broke out in Poland. ancient Greece than to revolutionary its initial performance in March 1932 to He appeared in Hamlet, a role he had me- France. While Cherubini trundles out his Politis’ early death in 1934. Politis was suc- thodically studied in depth, as was his way clichés she storms the heights with Eurip- ceeded by Dimitris Rondiris (1899-1981), with everything that had to do with his Maria Callas Magazine 20 No. 76 – November 2015 performances. It is interesting that in 1936, and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. But, most His repertoire included Prometheus Bound, the Theatre had sent him to Germany to important, he was on stage or followed Agamemnon, The Persians, Oedipus Rex, familiarize both himself and Bastias and rehearsals closely, watching Rondiris’ ex- Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Philoctetes, Rondiris back home with the German hausting teaching methods and interpre- Hecuba, Medea, The Phoenician Women, theatrical scene. In one of his many let- tations of the ancient texts and realizing and Hippolytus. And his best lady was his ters to Athens, he relates that he saw twice the many problems like the role of the equally famous wife, Oscar winner and performing and also met Gustaf Gründ- chorus, the movement of the actors and tragedienne Katina Paxinou. gens, Germany’s greatest Hamlet, studied their gestures, innumerable speech exer- his every motion,[4] and believed that the cises, face expressions, the rhythm of the Notes: Greek troupe had nothing to fear from performance and others. 1. Peter Heyworth, “Cherubini and Callas”, the competition. He was not wrong. Mi- In 1941, during the German occupa- 21 June 1959, The Observer (London). notis was also lucky to see in Athens the tion, Minotis escaped from Greece and 2. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fotos_Politis Old Vic troupe (29 March - 2 April 1939), joined his wife, the actress Katina Pax- 3. See which staged Hamlet with the young Alec inou, who was in the U.S., where he spent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelos_Sikelianos Guinness in the title role, gaining much the next ten years acting in Hollywood 4. This letter (10 October 1936), as well as many valuable knowledge of the British way of movies, like Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious others by Minotis, is kept in the Costis Bastias putting on a Shakespearian tragedy. At in 1946 alongside Cary Grant and Ingrid Archive in Athens. Minotis’ perfor- 5. “This Hamlet will mance of Hamlet be all Greek to him”, at ‘His Majesty’s Daily Mail (London), Theatre’ in London, 20 June 1939. Alec Guinness was 6. V. T., Evening News in the stalls watch- (London), 21 June ing this new Greek 1939. Hamlet.[5] It was his turn to see an- 2. The Dallas other Hamlet. The Cherubini Medea London Evening (1958) News summed up As Minotis worked the impression left on his tragedies in by Alexis Minotis’ Greece and else- Hamlet in prewar where, another Britain as follows: Greek performer, “A Hamlet who, the world’s most in turn was cruel, famous soprano, cunning, gener- Maria Callas, was ous, sympathetic, making a name hysterical, and yet for herself inter- remained the most nationally. One lovable of men of her favourite – a Hamlet unfor- Dallas, 5(?) November 1958, State Fair Music Hall, with Yannis Tsarouchis, operas, Medea gettable. Alexis Franco Zeffirelli, Alexis Minotis and Teresa Berganza by Luigi Cheru- Minotis was this bini, had been in astonishing character. Even if you have Bergman. her repertoire since she first sang it at counted your Hamlets by the hundreds Upon his return to Greece in 1951, Mi- Florence in 1953, staged by Margherita you might very well place this one at the notis again joined the National Theatre Wallmann with maestro Vittorio Gui top”.[6] of Greece acting but also directing an- conducting. She also sang it at La Scala His participation in the National The- cient tragedies in the theatre of Herodes the same year with the conductor Leon- atre (1932-1941), under the guidance of Atticus and from 1955 also at Epidaurus, ard Bernstein. In 1958, she opened at La Politis and then Rondiris, gave him the during the summer outdoor drama fes- Scala on 9 April with five performances opportunity to appear in many other tivals. He continued acting and directing of Anna Bolena and on that same evening Shakespearean roles including Mark until 1989, one year before his death. Al- Alexis Minotis and the National Theatre Anthony in Anthony and Cleopatra, Julius most forty years of continuously staging of Greece opened in Paris at the Théâtre Caesar, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides and des Nations in the historic Théâtre Sarah- Richard III, Henry IV, and Edgar and later playing the lead roles. As his fame grew, Bernhardt, with Euripides’ Medea. Lear in King Lear. At the same time he he was invited to appear with his troupe Callas had never met Minotis officially, appeared in ancient Greek tragedies like abroad, both in the U.S. and Europe, be- but she remembered him when she was Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and The Persians coming an iconic figure of ancient drama. hired for the first time professionally by No. 76 – November 2015 21 Maria Callas Magazine Dallas, 6(?) November 1958, State Fair Music Hall Maria Callas Magazine 22 No. 76 – November 2015 Costis Bastias at the National Opera of Minotis and it seems that his corrections The year 1958 was to be the Dallas Civ- Greece in 1940.[1] Minotis was then the were finally minimal. ic Opera’s first season with a full opera, star of the National Theatre of Greece, The next problem was that Minotis in fact two, both with Callas. Its general which coincidentally also housed the proposed the famous Greek painter, Yan- director Lawrence Kelly and its artistic newly found Opera, while she was an nis Tsarouchis,[3] for sets and costumes. director and conductor Nicola Rescigno unknown. Now, he was also the stage Callas was delighted, but the Civic Op- would become internationally known, director with new staging methods and era informed them that the local trade and a new U.S.