Bertolt Brecht

City of Mahagonny | Athens | April 12-25

The Greek National Opera (264 Syngrou) revitalizes Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's iconic masterpiece, "Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny." This 20th-century opera, set in Germany's Weimar Republic, offers a sharp critique of capitalism amid a world of excess. Weill's eclectic score, featuring hits like "Alabama Song," blends jazz and ragtime, ensuring timeless relevance.

A fond farewell to distinguished journalist Spyros Payiatakis

Spyros Payiatakis, a cosmopolitan journalist, long-time theater critic for Kathimerini, foreign correspondent and pioneer of digital reporting, died in Athens on Wednesday.

He was 79 and had been in frail health for several years.

Born in Thessaloniki on April 1, 1939, Payiatakis studied at the city's Anatolia College before leaving to study architecture in Berlin.

Baal | Athens | February 1

The Goethe Institute in Athens hosts Greece's first-ever screening of "Baal," a controversial 1970 TV movie based on Bertolt Brecht's play, written and directed for the screen by Volker Schloendorff and starring Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Sigi Graue and Margarethe von Trotta.

German actress Gisela May dies at 92

German actress and singer Gisela May has passed away aged 92. May is best known for her performances of political songs by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. Born in Wetzlar, Germany, in 1924, May was the daughter of actor and writer Käte May and writer Ferdinand May and attended drama school in Leipzig from 1942 to 1944.

Queen of musicals to come to CRR

German singer and actress Ute Lemper, who is renowned for her performances in musicals know world-wide, will take the stage at Istanbul's Cemal Re?it Rey (CRR) Concert Hall on April 28 with her project "Last Tango in Berlin."

Lemper has been universally praised for her interpretations of Berlin Cabaret Songs, the works of Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht and the French chanson.