The Leventis Museum’s Caterina Cornaro Goes to the Opera travels to the Teloglion Foundation of Art at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

The Leventis Museum’s Caterina Cornaro Goes to the Opera travels to the Teloglion Foundation of Art at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

19 November 2016 – 30 January 2017

The exhibition titled Caterina Cornaro Goes to the Opera, put on by the Leventis Municipal Museum in Nicosia in parallel with a series of supplementary events, having struck a responsive chord with the Cypriot public, is now travelling to Thessaloniki to be hosted at the Teloglion Foundation of Art of the Aristotle University.

In Nicosia the exhibition was accompanied by lectures, tours and a special operatic performance, presented at the Leventis Museum in June 2015. For the first time in 200 years, arias from the rare libretto of the opera titled Die Königin von Zypern / La Reine de Chypre, composed by Jacques Fromental Halévy and first staged in 1841, resonated across the Museum’s atrium.

In Thessaloniki the renewed exhibition is enriched by additional exhibits, including paintings, engravings and reviews written about the opera, as well as an album with pictures of its set and costumes. Also on display will be other significant exhibits from the Collections of the Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia and the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation, as well as from the private collections of Michael Zeipekkis and Demetris Michaelides.

On the exhibition’s opening day, 19 November 2016, the public will have the opportunity to attend a lecture by Professor Angel Nicolaou-Konnari on the Die Königin von Zypern / La Reine de Chypre opera. The lecture will be followed by an operatic performance featuring arias from the opera. A year after the performance at the Leventis Museum, the arias from Fromental Halévy’s rare libretto will reverberate once more through the voice of Maria Poyiadji-Fink and the melodic sounds from the piano of Michael Schütze. A special tour will also take place, led by Elena Poyiadji-Richter, Curator at the Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia. The same programme will be repeated on 20 November 2016, with the exhibition running until 30 January 2017.

Those lucky enough to be in beautiful Thessaloniki for the weekend of 19-20 November will have the chance to attend the programme and enjoy a very interesting exhibition. Additionally, for those unable to attend the operatic performance, the Museum has collaborated with the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation in order to have the event broadcast on the CyBC radio show ‘First Programme’. The time and date of the broadcast will be announced soon.

Sponsor: A. G. Leventis Foundation
Media sponsor: Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation