Athens, May 2015​

Dimitris Tiliakos is a Greek baritone, who is making a remarkable international career.  I've been hearing about him since my studying time in Germany, when Dimitris was already working as a soloist in the opera house of Nürnberg.  His personality is a noble one:  kind and warm-hearted, honourable and quite, but also standing up for himself when necessary.  Dimitris is now singing the most important roles of his repertoire all over the world, but he also manages to find quality time for himself and his family, giving the impression that life and time flow easily. 
By @kassandra_dimopoulou_official

How did your career start?
I was in Germany, studying singing in Munich. Right after my studies there, I sang the role of Conte Almavivia in Mozart's opera “The marriage of Figaro”, in one of the most beautiful theatres of Germany, the Prinzregententheater.  After this, I got a contract for some years in the State Opera of Nurnberg where I studied and sang a great number of roles.  When my contract ended, I started an international free-lance career, which is a wonderful, but also very hard way.


​Which are your favourite roles?
I feel very lucky because I have sang and I still sing some of the roles I used to dream as a student, such as Verdi's Macbeth and Simon Boccanegra, Mozart's Don Giovanni a.o. I believe though, there is a whole unexplored world of repertory that there is to be discovered and I am very excited about it. My artistic instinct though wants me to go further than the italian opera: I would like to try the german romatic era, by singing songs from Schubert, Schumann and Brahms. I am also very interested in Wagner and Strauss operas. I strongly believe that a singer should be free to move between eras and different styles, though some people in our world tend to want a singer to sing only this or that repertory for ever.


How do you study a new role?
I first get to know the whole opera: its structure and all the characters.  After I finish this, I start looking into my role.  Then I study the music and try to get rid of the vocal score as soon as possible by learning it by heart.  Parallel to that, I do a research about the composer, or the writer before the composer, by reading the original play or novel that inspired the composer to write an opera (or a cycle of songs) based on it.  The language of the opera of course, is a very important part of the learning process. It is, of course, much more difficult and complicated, when it is in a language one does not speak fluently- then, it needs lots of time to grow.  For me, the final part of rehearsing with the colleagues and bringing together the opera on stage, is maybe the most important.


If you were in a position to run an opera house, what would you do?  Would you change some things?
After 18 years of carrier in international opera houses, I think I might have some ideas about the matter, though I am an artist and not an administrator.  I think, it is very important that an opera house manages to combine the reality of its time with the artistic result, meaning that, the repertory of the season should be chosen according to what happens in the society at the current period.  On this platform, should move both he musical direction and the stage direction.  After one has this base, should cast the right artists -which is not something anyone should and could do.  People who cast opera singers, stage directors and music directors should have a deep knowledge of opera.  Right now, in lots of places, the casting is not an artistic vision of an artistic director, it is more an exchange of money and “product” between managers.  One should cast opera singers by really knowing their nature and their skills.  Not everyone is right for every role, one should be able to see who has the right voice and also, the right type for each role.  As I said, it should be a “vision”, not just a job.  A vision about the essence of the art, built with respect around the people who serve art.


What about Greece and opera?
Greece has built many “temples” and “palaces” for the art, especially after the year 2000, but I don't feel that the people who are managing these places have got the point of it: we really need to focus on the essence, which is the artistic creation.  A vision like that, should be fully supported by the government, but I don't think this has really happened yet. About the management of the whole thing, it should be enough to try and do what a successful European opera house is doing. There a few people out there who really know how to run an opera house as it should be run.


What is the secret for a successful career like yours?
Consciousness. One should be always looking for the essence of the art, should be real and fearless, poetic and revolutionary. Of course, these are words that each one can understand in many different ways, but I think it is important, nowadays, to search and keep our qualities. We live in times that art has become a product and artists change hands between managers, artistic directors and who take advantage of them, treating them with no respect. That is why, we, artists, should stay strong and faithful to our initial call: make music because we love to express ourselves through it. We should also claim our rights, believe in ourselves and most of all, believe in a collective work- this point, I think, is very important, because the theatre world lives through collectivity.


Your future plans?
My next stop is the Theare Bolshoi of Moskow where I am ging to sing Verdi's “Rigoletto” under Evelino Pido (stage direction: Robert Carsen). I also on tour around Europe with a german song programm (Die Wintereise, by Schubert- Müller) together with the Greek pianist Vassilis Varvaressos. May and June I am in Brussels for an operatic trilogy of Sergei Rachmaninov's “The miserly Knight”. The beginnign og the next season is exciting, too. I am singing Verdi's “La Traviata” in the Royal Opera of Kopenhagen, in Denmark.


Art is...
I love a phrase written by the Greek poet Eggonopoulos: “Life, death and in between, art”.