The GNO achieves its goal, with planning and hard work

By Dimitris Rigopoulos

When the people at the Greek National Opera were putting together “Aida,” the company’s second production this season, everything was working against them. First of all, the timing: by the last 10 days of July most Athenian culture buffs have scattered hither and thither. Then the actual days: a weekend, with the other half of Athens heading off on holiday or to the beach. The weather: a forecast of 40C for Athens on Saturday. The crisis: many people are reluctant to spend 30 or 40 euros nowadays. The size of the Herodes Atticus Odeon: when you need to sell 4,500 tickets to get a full house, the whole deal is up in the air. The success of the GNO’s previous production, “Norma”: the Greek audience for opera is not big enough to ensure a second box office success within the space of a few weeks.

Yet, the GNO did it. Like Lazarus, the GNO, which had been left for dead just months ago, managed to rise up. And not only did it rise up, but every performance it has staged has been sold out. Not a single empty seat was to be found on the first two shows on Friday and Saturday, and by Wednesday there was no chance of even finding a ticket. What does this mean? Sales of over 13,000 tickets and a new record in the company’s history. It was the first time, according to Board President Nikos Mourkogiannis, that a GNO production made a profit, not counting sponsorships.

There is an explanation for the surprising success of “Aida” dead in the middle of a scorching summer weekend, and the fact that it is one of Giuseppe Verdi’s most popular operas is not it. What lies behind the resounding success of the production is, without doubt, the excellent promotional drive organized by the GNO: A barrage of advertising in the press and on television, numerous interviews with the board president and, of course, the wonderful idea of the sightseeing bus touring the streets of Athens with the GNO band playing the ever-popular “Triumphal March.” Ticket sales for “Aida” tripled as a result of the red bus tour and the publicity the initiative generated.

The commercial success of the GNO’s summer season is indisputably the work of Mourkogiannis. It was his idea to put on a second production in the summer (the last time the GNO did this was in 1968) and to convince the company and its staff that holidays would not be starting in early July this year, but it would be a summer of hard work that may just save the sinking ship of the GNO. But, while the debt-ridden GNO ship may have found a safe haven in the sheltered cove of the Herodes Atticus Odeon, the waters are still very choppy out in the real world. “No, we did not recover financially,” says Mourkogiannis. “Let it suffice that it was a psychological victory. We gained confidence. What the performances at the Herodes Atticus proved was that the Greek National Opera’s financial woes boil down to the fact that it doesn’t have a large theatre of its own.”