“Almas tyernas y puras/ Keridas y regaladas” will be performed by soprano Mariangela Hadjistamatiou at an event dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Israeli community in Thessaloniki, next Sunday, the day of remembrance of the Greek martyrs and heroes of the Holocaust. This is a Latin lyric from an aria about “gentle and pure souls” rising to heaven, Thessaloniki’s lament for its own people who perished in the Nazi death camps. The score of the three-minute aria, forgotten and buried for over 70 years in the historical archives of the Israeli community of Thessaloniki, was recently discovered by historian Rika Benveniste for playwright Chryssa Scarlatou to study.

Its text is written in Hebrew-Spanish (Latin) of the Sephardic Jews of Thessaloniki by an unknown lyricist to the music of the famous aria “Ombra mai fu” from the opera “Xerxes” by George F. Handel (1685). -1759), apparently refer to the victims of the Holocaust. According to the study, the aria was first performed by the tenor and then Professor of the Athens National Conservatory Kostas Liontas (Kozani, 1903 – Vienna, 1953) on May 2, 1954, at the event of the Israeli Community of Thessaloniki on Yom Ha Shoah, accompanied on the harmonium by his wife, soprano Piroska Lionda.

The new text, explains musicologist Chris Scarlatou, replaces the original text by Nikolos Minato in the well-known aria “Xerxis”. In the text “Amas Tyernas y puras” from Thessaloniki, the unknown author retains the adjective “gentle” in the first verse of the recitative only because instead of “leaves” he speaks of “souls”.

The aria is a prayer to “fathers, brothers, mothers, creatures that consumed you in flames.”

The lyrics are a plea: “May thunder and lightning never disturb your precious peace again, may no more barbaric deeds defile you.” The aria is a prayer for “fathers, brothers, mothers, beings who consumed you in flames” as the lyrics say, with clear references to the seven days of mourning and the Kandish, a daily prayer of praise also sung at funerals. disadvantaged Jews.

Next Sunday, the three-minute aria will be performed for the first time on the 21st at the tribute concert of the State Orchestra of Thessaloniki at the Megaro Musikis “Never Again” with a program that the new artistic director of the Greek Theater of Athens, points out Simos Papanas, “was built to soften and alleviate the burden of the tragedy referenced by British historian and writer Mark Mazauer in his speech “80 Years Later: Memories of Thessaloniki in 1943”. The Works of Zvi Avni (1927) [Prayer («Tefillah»)] for strings, Leonard Bernstein [Nocturne («Halil») για ορχήστρα δωματίου και σόλο φλάουτο] and Brahms (Symphony No. 3 in F major, opus 90), directed by Yoav Talmi, were chosen for “an emotional journey, a tribute to the Jews of our city”.

Songs of Auschwitz

The lost score is one of the treasures of the unknown and undiscovered music of the Greek Jews, on which Mariandzela Hadjistamatiou has been working for six years. The first fruit of the research was the album “Unknown Musical Treasures of the Greek Jews”, and a second collection entitled “Songs of the Greek Jews about the Holocaust” will soon be released. It includes 16 unknown and anecdotal songs written in the period 1942-1943 in the Thessaloniki ghetto and in the Auschwitz camps. It is characteristic that the texts of the songs are mostly written in Greek. By singing in the language of their homeland, they declared their Greek identity. Most of them, Ms. Hadjistamatiou explains, describe their difficult living conditions, their tragic situation, some sarcastically describe harsh reality. Some, purely patriotic, have a clear reference to the homeland: “I am a real and faithful Romeo.” The track of the resistance period with changed lyrics cheered them up in Auschwitz. “This is life, girls, be patient, we will get out of Auschwitz” are the words of another song to the melody of the war years, and in the song “Rebetiko” by Markos Vamvakaris, words written and sung by the Greeks are touched upon. in the camps: “My dear Thessalonica homeland has become famous / oh, when will the time come for us to live together.”