Dionysis Savvopoulos will be one of the performers, accompanied by musicians Ghiotis Kiourtsoglou, Orestis Plakidis and Vanghelis Karipis.

The idea was born in a workshop for the translation and musical adaptation of some text of the musician’s songs conducted by the Department of Modern Greek Language and Literature, under the supervision of Professor Paola Maria Minucci.

This concert is its natural conclusion: a tribute to the ”singing poet” who in 1968 composed the opera ‘Il giardino del pazzo’ in Milan, and an opportunity to bring people in Rome in contact with the work of a great artist who has accompanied and commentated on nearly fifty years of life and history in Greece.

The revenues of the concert will go to scholarships for students of the Department.

(Source: ANSAmed)

“I had worked for the Taviani Brothers already but for two years no other director would call me for casting because they thought I was almost exclusively a theatre actor. After the casting for Alexander it was a long time before Angelopoulos contacted me. But once we started working together, it was a unique experience” commented Mr. Antonutti.

The 77-year-old Italian actor remembers the shootings for the film on the Greek mainland and the snow in Dotsiko, near Grevena, northwestern Greece.

“At first I thought I would see the Greece of tourist advertisements. The Greece we all know. I found out, however, that there is another country, completely different from the advertisements. Next to Theodoros everything was a constant surprise” said Mr. Antonutti.

“I will always remember how Angelopoulos wanted me to maintain the harsh and cruel attitude of the robber-protagonist even after the shootings were over. It was a sort of unique and innovative interpretation of the Stanislavski method” added Mr. Antonutti.

As far as his personal relationship to the late Greek filmmaker is concerned, Mr. Antonutti said that there was a tremendous difference between the open and witty Angelopoulos off work and the professional, completely immersed in his project Angelopoulos during work. “The film had to be completed no matter what. Angelopoulos was totally and solely concentrated on his film and its needs.”

Commenting on the dynamics and directness of Angelopoulos films, Omero Antonutti said that Angelopoulos became internationally recognized because his work addressed and always focused on the person living inside a difficult and complex society.

This success is attributable to Elias Tzempetonidis, the current Casting Manager of La Scala from Thessaloniki.

Two years after taking over the Casting position, Tzempetonidis has seen subscriptions rise by 5% despite the current economic crisis in Italy. “We are talking about young people, 25 to 30 years old, mostly coming from Milan and the broader region of Lombardy” said Mr. Tzempetonidis.

The 40-year old Greek Manager is one of the youngest people to have ever worked in such a high ranked position within La Scala. He studied Law, Contact Management and Art in Germany, and his first contact with classical music and opera was in 1994 when he participated in Nafplio’s festival. He worked in the Munich Opera (1997-2000), and returning to Greece, worked in artistic programming at the Thessaloniki Concert Hall. Since 2006, he served as director of planning and casting at the National Opera.

Tzempetonidis will work in La Scala as Casting Director until 2013, and has already announced the finalized castings of the opera house for 2012 and 2013 (years of Verdi and Wagner respectively). Always bearing in mind that such complicated things like organizing and staging an opera concert cannot be completed from one day to the next, Tzempetonidis is already planning the next three seasons, searching at the same time for the new “Aida” or the next “Rigoletto”.

“We have found a new way to attract young people to the opera. We invented the Ante Prima: three days before the official premiere of any performance, people aged up to 30-years-old can watch the play by paying only 10 Euros for their ticket instead of the price for an orchestra-level seat priced at about 240 Euros.” said Mr. Tzempetonidis.

“In this way, we keep quality going despite the crisis” sums up Mr. Tzempetonidis.

Christidis’ name was repeated many times during the telephone conversations between the captain of the ship, Schettino, and the Livorno Port Authority chief Gregorio De Falco, who was repeatedly telling the captain to get back on board to help passengers.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office of Italy decided that no charges will be brought against Christidis, and that there is no reason he should remain in custody.

Christidis is of Greek origin but does not have Greek citizenship, since he is currently a citizen of Italy.

In comparison to last year’s romantic vibe, the designer’s inspiration is now drawn from the urban rock style of NY, combining colors and shades of gray, black and brown in the creation of relaxed outfits bringing together the new and the old, knits and disheveled proportions.

To open the show, Varvatos screened an animated film depicting New York landmarks, from the Chrysler Building to the Guggenheim, and featuring his male models in a speed mode before hitting the runway.

Cruise Ship Costa Concordia after hitting a rock, offshore Tusan, Italy

Passengers leap into the sea and fought over life-jackets in panic when an Italian cruise ship ran aground and keeled over, killing at least three and leaving dozens missing.

In the chaotic aftermath of the Friday evening accident near the island of Giglio off the coast of Tuscany, Italian officials could still not say how many of the 4,229 passengers and crew on board the 114,500-tonne Costa Concordia were missing. According to the GM of Costa Crociere, The vessel’s operator, there were three Greek citizens on the cruise-ship. All three are in good health.
“People were trying to steal lifejackets from each other. We could only gets ones for children,” said a passenger.

An official involved in the rescue operation said two French tourists and a Peruvian crew member were dead. Around 70 people were injured.

Authorities opened a criminal investigation for possible manslaughter and Italian news agencies reported that the ship’s commander, Francesco Schettino had been detained by police.
The vessel’s operator, Costa Crociere, a unit of Carnival Corp & Plc, the world’s largest cruise operator, said it had been sailing on its regular course when it struck a submerged rock. In a television interview, the ship’s commander said the rock was not marked on any maritime charts of the area.

The vessel was left capsized on its side in water 15-20 meters deep, with decks partly submerged, not far from the shore. A large gash was visible on its side.

According to Italian officials there are twenty passengers still missing. They said the search would continue overnight although darkness and the cold seas would make the work difficult.
The ship was built in 2004-2005 at a cost of 450 million euros at the Fincantieri Sestri shipyard in Italy.

(With information from Reuters)

Ria Antoniou (Greek: Ρία Αντωνίου, born July 14, 1988) is a Greek beauty pageant titleholder and the 2nd runner-up in Star Hellas 2008.

Being half Peloponnesian, she entered and won the “Miss Peloponnese” pageant in 2007. Antoniou represented Greece in the “Model of the World” pageant and placed as 2nd runner-up.

Months after the pageant, Antoniou was appointed by the Star Hellas Organization to represent Greece in Miss Earth 2008 on November 9, 2008, in Angeles City, Pampanga, Philippines. She failed to make the cut.

The SARCHA working team wishes to adapt Polypolis social game to the specific city resource conditions in Rome (Pigneto area) and design the Polypolis_Roma version of the game.

Polypolis reverses the ‘one winner takes all’ logic of ‘monopoly’, and adapts it specifically to the complex issues facing contemporary cities by experimenting with different ways in which the common resources of the city can be held and mobilized collectively by its inhabitants.

Polypolis is a role-playing social game; it entails negotiations among four different groups of players that strive to resolve complex issues related to the existing human/physical/natural resources within city blocks.

The Polypolis game was conceived as a testing ground for SARCHA’s “CCR: CityCommonResource (2010-2011)” research theme and the “CCR Athens Gerani 2010” pilot study; the latter was commissioned by the Hellenic Ministry for the Environment and shortlisted among 54 submission at the “Resourceful Architect” RSA competition (London, May 2011).

The game has been tested at the p-public festival (Chania –Crete, June 2011), played by the Moraitis school forensics group (Athens, Oct. 12, 2011) and presented at the Hellenic Technical Chamber’s conference “Public space – wanted” (Thessaloniki Oct. 22, 2011).

SARCHA is interested to develop and adapt the CCR approach in various city contexts and in other countries by producing specific editions of Polypolis.  Scheduled additional venues include London, at the architecture festival of 2012.

“The Other Sea” will be about illegal immigration and human trafficking from FYROM and Albania to Greece and Italy, as this is seen through the story of a businessman, who became a politician and the key figure of a traffickers’ ring.

With an estimated budget of 5 million Euros and given the poor finances of Greece at the moment, Turkish producer Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Italian producer Amedeo Pagani are the main funders of the new film production of Angelopoulos.

In fact, Mr. Pagani noted that the film aims at depicting the financial crisis plaguing Greece today.

The film’s shootings are planned to take place in Greece, and most particularly, in Piraeus, in Patras and in Rex Theatre. Shootings are expected to last ca. 6 weeks.

Mrs. Maltezou was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and graduated from Averofeio High School. She however pursued her studies at the University of Athens, The University of Mediterranean Studies at Aix – en – Provence (France), and the Institute of Byzantine and Postbyzantine Studies in Venice (Italy). She continued her studies at the University of Padua (1965 – 1967) and obtained a Degree from the School of Paleography, Archival and Diplomatic Studies of the State Archives of Venice.

Among other things, Mrs. Chryssa Maltezou was a researcher for the Center for Byzantine Studies of the Greek Research Institute (1969 – 1979), she taught Byzantine History and History of the Latin rule in the Greek East as visiting Professor at the University of Crete (1977 – 1982), and History of Culture at the Drama Studies Department of the University of Athens.

A member of Greek and foreign scholarly associations, she has participated in several Greek and international scholarly conferences and organized international meetings, conferences and symposia. In 1982 she was awarded the prize of the Academy of Athens for her contribution to the preservation and study of the Historical Archives of Cythera, while in 2003 she was awarded the Gold Cross of the Legion of Honor by the President of the Hellenic Republic at the time, Mr. Constantinos Stefanopoulos, for her scholarly work, and the Dante Aligheri Prize in 2007.

At the Institute of Byzantine and Postbyzantine Studies she succeeded academic Manousos Manousakas. Being an active and motivational person, Chryssa Maltezou never ceased to fight for the ongoing operation of the Institute and the preservation of its valuable treasures.