Today we visit Greece: Manos Hatzidakis
(Μάνος Χατζιδάκις) (1925-1994) is considered to be Greece's top composer.
Also, he was gay, everybody knew it, but apart from a few jokes here and there,
it was more or less accepted by everyone. Funny thing is, Greece's most famous
painter of the 2nd half of the 20th Century was also openly gay. At the time,
if you were a great artist, they gave you a discrimination-free pass. If not,
things weren't so rosy.
Hatzidakis started writing music for plays in the late
40s and by the mid 50s he was a household name. He was the first Greek composer
to win the Best Song Oscar for "Never On Sunday". The song had a few
gay coded references (At night I hang around the port in order to find a
stranger).
Video Link:
A year later, late 1961, the song The Postman Is Dead (Ο Ταχυδρόμος Πέθανε) is part of the
soundtrack of a play. It tells the story of a 17-year-old postman who just died
and the singer worries who will carry their letters to their true love. But we
soon discover that the singer's true love actually was the postman. Finally in
the last line we learn that the singer died together with the postman. (Double
suicide? It is not clarified). The song was originally sung by a woman, but
then Hadjidakis remade it in the mid 80s, using a male singer (as well he
should), his protege Vassilis Lekas (Βασίλης Λέκας).
This is a good video. Underneath you can read the
lyrics both in English and in Greek:
Street Of Dreams (Οδός Ονείρων) (1962, from the musical
of the same title) also became a gay anthem. Sung by a young gay man called
Giorgos Marinos (Γιώργος Μαρίνος), it includes the lyric "every house
contains some love hidden in the silence and a young man thinks that his love
is shameful."
Video Link:
He lived in the US (1965-1972), where he worked with
many notable musicians, Quincy Jones and Michael Kamen among others. There, he
recorded "Gioconda's Smile" (Το Χαμόγελο της Τζοκόντα), a fully instrumental album, clocking
just over 28 minutes, which eventually became his biggest-selling album in
Greece.
Video Link of the album in its entirety:
In 1972 he returned to Greece and recorded "The
Great Erotic" (Ο Μεγάλος Ερωτικός), in
which he put great poetry from throughout the ages to music. The male parts
were sung by Dimitris Psarianos (Δημήτρης Ψαριανός) and the female parts by Fleurie Dadonaki (Φλέρυ Νταντωνάκη). One of the poems that he used was Days of 1903
(Μέρες Του 1903) by great gay poet Kavafis (Καβάφης). The song describes a
one-night-stand that left an indelible impression on the poet. He was, however,
never able to find that person again.
Video Link:
In the same record, there's a song based on a poem by
Sappho (Σαπφώ),
the famous Classical Greek woman poet from Lesbos, about woman to woman love.
Video Link:
And here's the whole album, if you care to hear it:
In 1975, impressed by a beautiful Israeli singer with a
heavenly voice called Uri, he writes Uri's Ballad (Η Μπαλάντα Του Ούρι), originally an
instrumental. The lyrics were introduced in 1983.
Here, as sung by Vassilis Lekas (Βασίλης Λέκας):
In 1982 his last musical was staged, a surreal affair
called "Pornography" (Πορνογραφία),
which was much more tender and poetic than its title suggests. The song
"The Ballad Of The Senses and Of Illusions" (Η Μπαλάντα Των Αισθήσεων
Και Των Παραισθήσεων) describes a young man visiting a porn cinema in order to
cruise for sex. The lyrics, however, don't describe a seedy experience. They
rather describe a transcedental, almost religious experience: "Now I'm
naked, I look like a God, luminous and powerful. I want you to love me, I want
you to gift me with this moment, my body is just my excuse."
Here, sung again by Vassilis Lekas (Βασίλης Λέκας):
Hatzidakis was living together with a younger man for
many years. Since gay marriage or variations thereof were not available then,
he adopted his lover, so that he would inherit him after his death. The Greek
parliament didn't like this: after the composer's death they voted in a law
that would forbid a man adopting another man if the latter was over the age of
18. Which goes to show that politicians can be bloody bastards, wherever they
are.
I would love to sing his songs, but I cannot find a published collection for sale, and not one for Illya Darling. Is his character, played by Melina Mercouri, whose voice is as low as a man's, a stand-in for a male prostitute?
ReplyDeleteHello my friend. I did a quick search and found that there are ten of his albums available in Amazon. I'd say they're all worth having. Here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/Manos-Hadjidakis/e/B000AQ1U5S
DeleteMelina Mercouri was a gay idol from the start of her career. I'd say it's safer to perceive her character in Stella as a gay man, rather than the one in Never On Sunday/Ilya Darling. After all, the former was written/directed by a gay man (Mihalis Kakogiannis) while the latter was written/directed by a straight man (Jules Dassin). Having said that, Illya Darling is a play that celebrates the joy of sex, ridding it of societal guilt. In that respect, it is certainly a gay-friendly film/play.