Cycle | Chamber music
Heavily embedded within the dreamy aesthetic experience of the Romantic era, the music program performed by the mezzo soprano Diamanti Kritsotaki and the pianist Eleni Papaspyrou comprises works by Robert Schumann (1810-1856), Franz Liszt (1811-1886), Richard Strauss (1864-1949), Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) inspired by and composed on poetry by Fiedrich Rückert (1788-1866), Hermann von Gilm (1812-1864), John Henry Mackay (1864-1933), Otto Julius Bierbaum (1865-1910), Mathilde Wesendonck (1828-1902) and Richard Dehmel (1863-1920).
The unfulfilled love, the nature’s beauty, the night’s serenity, the fear of death and the ever-lasting search for Light are the firmly recapitulating thematic patterns reaching the extreme climax of Romanticism: the perpetual desire of Man to share his loneliness so that he never feels alone; that is the inheriting idea of romantic art.
Diamanti Kritsotaki | mezzo soprano
Eleni Papaspyrou | piano
Program
Robert Schumann
I. Widmung (1840)
from the cycle of songs “Myrthen”, Opus 25, No. 1
Poetry by Friedrich Rückert
Franz Liszt
Liebeslied (1849)
An adaptation for piano on the main theme of Widmung
from the cycle of songs “Myrthen”, Opus 25, No. 1 by Robert Schumann
Richard Strauss
Allerseelen (1885)
from the cycle of songs “8 Gedichte aus 'Letzte Blätter”, Opus 10, No. 8
Poetry by Hermann von Gilm
Richard Strauss
Morgen (1894), Opus 27, No. 4
Poetry by Hermann von Gilm
Richard Strauss
Traum durch die Dämmerung (1895), Opus 29, No. 3
Poetry by Otto Julius Bierbaum
Richard Wagner
Wesendonck Lieder
Fünf Gedichte für eine Frauenstimme, WWV 91
1. Der Engel (1857)
2. Stehe still! (1858)
3. Im Treibhaus (1858)
4. Schmerzen (1857)
5. Träume (1857)
Poetry by Mathilde Wesendonck
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Glückwunsch (1948), Opus 38, No. 1
Poetry by Richard Dehmel
Biographical notes of the performers
Diamanti Kritsotaki | mezzo soprano
Mezzo soprano Diamanti Kritsotaki was born and raised in Heraklion Crete by musician parents. She started studying the piano and singing at the local municipality choir at an early age. At the age of 19 years old she started classical singing lessons that lead to her Diploma in Classical singing at the age of 23. She continued her music studies in Leopold Mozart Zentrum at the University of Augsburg in Germany graduating with a “Master in Music” with a major in Classical singing in the class of Agnes Habereder-Kottler. She has studied with and participated to seminars in Greece and abroad, too, with professors like: Frieder Bernius, Karl-Peter Kammerlander, Graham Johnson, Robert White, Ann Murray, Loh Siew Tuan, Carol Richardson Smith, Sonia Theodoridou, Christina Giannakopoulou, Nicolas Vassiliou, Christophoros Staboglis.
Diamanti Kritsotaki has sung as a soloist in productions of Augsburg Theater like: “Erwin, das Naturtalent” (Mike Svoboda), “Meeting Dido” as Dido (Henry Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” opera-collage with “Satyricon” by Bruno Maderna), “Divertimento4amadeus”. In Greek National Opera Theater she has sung as a soloist in “Macbeth” as Apparitione (Giuseppe Verdi), in “Il barbiere di Siviglia” as Rosina (Gioachino Rossini), in “Carmen” as Carmen and as Mercedes (Georges Bizet), in “Madama Butterfly” as Kate Pinkerton (Giacomo Puccini), in “Manon” as Javotte (Jules Massenet). At the alternative stage of Greek National Opera she has sung at the following productions: “Z” (Minas Bourboudakis), “Bakxai” (Iannis Xenakis) and “Orfeas2020” (a queer multimedia opera based on the music of Claudio Monteverdi). Other productions that she has sung soloist part are “Oedipus: Sex with mum was blinding” (Tilemachos Moussas) at Sfendoni Theater, “The Shell Game” (George Doussis) at Apo Michanis Theater.
Diamanti Kritsotaki has performed under the instructions of exceptional conductors such as Lukas Karytinos, Myron Michailidis, Tassos Simeonidis, Nicolas Vassiliou, Giorgos Aravidis, Andreas Pylarinos, Rafail Pylarinos, Ilias Voudouris, and has been directed by Simos Kakalas, Giannos Perlegas, Katerina Evangelatos, Thomas Moschopoulos, Steven Langridge, Elli Papakonstantinou and Raia Tsakiridi.
The last years, along with her career as a soloist, she teaches singing in her hometown in Heraklion Crete at AR Conseratory.
Eleni Papaspyrou | piano
Eleni Papaspyrou studied piano at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz in Austria (Bachelor’s Degree) and subsequently completed her Master studies with honors at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She also holds a diploma in Musicology from the Music Institute of the University of Athens.
She has performed piano recitals and chamber music concerts in Greece at the Athens Megaron, the Greek State Radio, the Heraklion Festival, the Festival of Dodecaneese, the Renaissance Festival of Rethymnon and many more. Abroad she has played respective concerts at the Kuenstlerhaus Wien, the Wiener Bezirksfestwochen, Styria Classic, the Ost-West Musikfest, Kulturzentrum bei den Minoriten amongst others.
Eleni lives since 2008 in Heraklion, Crete, and teaches the piano at the Heraklion State Music School and at the Heraklion State Conservatory. She has a particular affinity for the music of contemporary Greek composers and has made numerous first recordings of works from both established and emerging composers of Greece.