RETURN

Spyros Saligaros

Soloist, Baritone
He was born in Athens in 1913 or 1915. He studied at the School of Law, Athens University. During the interwar period, he recorded various popular songs with the labels ODEON, Parlophone, Columbia (1936-1939). In 1938 he was accepted on a scholarship at the Athens Conservatoire where he studied opera and Leid under Marika Chaliopoulou and Elvira de Hidalgo. While still a student, he debuted in the operas Gianni Schicchi, La bohème and Pagliacci with Ulysses Lappas’ Athens Opera troupe (1939). In 1947 he won an international award in Geneva and continued his studies in Rome under Riccardo Stracciari. He also appeared in Australia, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, France and Yugoslavia. In 1950 he won an opera prize in Melbourne and a Lied prize in Sydney. In the 1960s he worked with the Greek State Radio (EIR), and was a cofounder of the Greek Broadcasting Service YENED, with which he produced more than 700 broadcast programs. He was a WWII veteran and a member of the Union of Disabled and War Victims and the Confédération Européenne des Anciens Combattants. He was head and instructor with the Orpheus Conservatory Athens and was a co-founder of the Association of Monodrama/Operetta Actors. He worked as a stage director and also composed songs. From 1943 to 1949 he sang minor baritone roles in five operas and four operettas in 12 productions and/or revivals: Carmen, Manon, Madama Butterfly, Mignon, A masked ball [Un ballo in maschera], House of the three girls [Das Dreimädelhaus], The merry widow [Die lustige Witwe], The Land of Smiles [Das Land des Lächelns], The Bird Seller [Der Vogelhändler]. Some of his singing performances of interwar period popular songs have been saved to posterity, while an Internet site under his name contains details of discography and performances of songs by Paolo Tosti, An, etc.