Music and nightlife
Traditional Greek
music - rebétika and
dhimotiká - can,
at its best, provide the
city's most compelling
nighttime entertainment.
To partake, however, you
really need to visit
during the winter months;
from around May to
October most clubs and
boîtes close
their doors, while the
musicians head off to
tour the countryside and
islands. Most of the
places that remain open
are a tourist travesty
of over-amplified and
overpriced bouzoúki
noise - at their nadir,
not surprisingly, in
Pláka.
As for other forms of
live music, there are
small, indigenous
jazz and rock
scenes, perennially
strapped for funds and
venues, but worth
checking out.
Classical music
performances tend to
form the core of the
summer Hellenic
Festival, but with the
completion in 1991 of
the city's concert hall
out on Vasilíssis Sofías
there is now a long-running
winter season as well.
Discos and
music bars are very
much in the European
mould. The clubs in the
city tend to close
during the summer,
unless they have roof
terraces; Athenian youth,
meanwhile, move out to a
series of huge hangar-like
disco-palaces in the
coastal suburbs.
For information
and knowledgeable advice
on all kinds of Athenian
music - traditional,
rock and jazz - look in
at the record shops
7+7, Iféstou 7,
Monastiráki, or
Happening, Hariláou
Trikoúpi 13. Both of
these generally display
posters for the more
interesting events and
have tickets on sale for
rock, jazz or festival
concerts.
Arts and culture
Unless your Greek is
fluent, the contemporary
Greek theatre
scene is likely to be
inaccessible. As with
Greek music, it is
essentially a winter
pursuit; in summer, the
only theatre tends to be
satirical and (to
outsiders) totally
incomprehensible revues.
Dance , however,
is more accessible and
includes a fine
traditional Greek show,
while cinema is
undubbed - and out of
doors in summer.
In addition, in
winter months, you might
catch ballet (and
world music
concerts) at the
convenient but
acoustically awful
Pallas Theatre, at
Voukourestíou 1;
opera from the Greek
National Opera Lyrikí
Skiní, in the Olympia
Theatre at Akadhimías
59; and classical
events either in the
Hall of the Friends of
Music (Mégaro Mousikís),
out on Leofóros
Vasilíssis Sofías next
to the US embassy, or at
the Filippos Nakas
Concert Hall, at
Ippokrátous 41. Also
worth looking out for
are events at the
various foreign
cultural institutes
. Among these are: the
Hellenic American Union,
Massalías 22; the
British Council, Platía
Kolonáki 17; the French
Institute, Sína 29/Massalías
1; and the Goethe
Institute, Omírou 14-16.
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