RENATO MORDO: JEWISH, GREEK AND GERMAN AT THE SAME TIME - THE LIFE OF AN ARTIST IN THE AGE OF EXTREMES

Organizer: THESSALONIKI CONCERT HALL IN COLLABORATION WITH GOETHE INSTITUTE, STATE AGENCY FOR CIVIC EDUCATION OF RHINELAND-PALATINATE & CULTURAL TRIANGLE OF PRESPA

We inform you that the exhibition in honor of Renato Mordo is completed earlier than the specified date due to technical issues.

Exhibition in honor of Renato Mordo, co-founder of the Greek National Opera

The Thessaloniki Concert Hall, the Goethe Institute, the State Agency for Civic Education of Rhineland-Palatinate and the Cultural Triangle of Prespa honour Renato Mordo, the first director of the Greek National Opera. The cooperating bodies jointly present the exhibition “Renato Mordo. Jewish, Greek and German at the same time. The life of an artist in the age of extremes”, which will be presented both in the Greek and the German language. The exhibition will be held from January 25 to February 19, 2023 at M2 Hall of the Thessaloniki Concert Hall and the Library of Goethe Institute. The opening of the exhibition will take place on Wednesday, January 25 at 19:00 at M2 Hall of the Thessaloniki Concert Hall.
The exhibition features milestones of the life of the theater and opera director Renato Mordo. Renato Mordo, whose parents were of Jewish descent -his father was a merchant from Corfu and his mother was from Austria- was forced to leave Germany at the end of 1932 due to the ever-increasing amtisemitic hostility and the imminent seizure of power by the National Socialists, and eventually fled to Greece in 1939. In Athens, he co-founded the Greek National Opera and promoted the young opera singer Maria Callas. Renato Mordo survived the concentration camp in Chaidari and, subsequent to his release, he wrote the theatrical play entitled “Chaidari”, in which he literarily recounts the traumatic experiences he suffered. After the war, he worked at theaters in Turkey, Austria and Israel and served as opera director in Mainz, the capital of the federal state Rhineland-Palatinate from 1952 to 1955.
The exhibition places particular emphasis on the depiction of the German Occupation of Greece during World War II and addresses its devastating impact on Athens and the entire country, as well as its personal impact on Renato Mordo. Moreover, the exhibition casts a brief glance at World War II through Mordo’s biography.
The exhibition will be open to the public at M2 Hall of the Thessaloniki Concert Hall from Monday to Sunday, 10:00-20:00 and at Goethe Institute on Monday 10:00-14:00, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10:00-19:00, Friday 15:00-19:00 and every other Saturday of the month 09:00-13:30.
Admission to the exhibition is free of charge.
The curation of the exhibition has been undertaken by the Hellenist Torsten Israel (Manheim and Athens), while the exhibition was created in collaboration with Uwe Bader (State Agency for Civic Education of Rhineland-Palatinate) and Marita Hoffman (LlUX publishing house, Ludwigshafen upon Rhine). The implementation of the exhibition is also supported by other bodies of the federal state, including the State Parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate. All the translations required for the exhibition from German into Greek were carried out within the framework of cooperation of the Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz (Department of Modern Greek) and the Ionian University in Corfu (Department of Foreign Languages, Translation and Interpreting).