Irma Kolassi

Irma Kolassi was born in Athens on 28 May 1918. Her family background was Armenian-French, and she spoke French from childhood, while Athens provided her formal musical education. At the Hellenic Conservatory she studied piano with Theseus Pindios and, encouraged by Dimitris Mitropoulos, singing with Maggie Karadja. Further study took her to Rome’s Santa Cecilia academy, where her musicianship included work with Alfredo Casella.

The Second World War brought her back to Greece. Between 1940 and 1943 she sang with the newly established Greek National Opera, including Suzuki in Madama Butterfly and ensemble roles in Kalomiris’s Ο Πρωτομάστορας (The Master Builder). Teaching and accompaniment also belonged to her working life in Athens. Her later international reputation therefore grew from concrete participation in Greek musical institutions.

She settled in Paris in the late 1940s, developing a career centred on recitals, broadcasting and recording. French composers and contemporary music became central to her repertoire, alongside German song and other traditions. She later taught at the Schola Cantorum in Paris and in Troyes. She died in Paris on 27 March 2012. Her archive entered the Athens Music Library in 2017, preserving materials from this long performing and teaching life.

Kolassi’s early Greek National Opera work belongs to the company’s formative years. Her Suzuki in Madama Butterfly is documented in 1940; in Ο Πρωτομάστορας (The Master Builder) in 1943 she sang ensemble roles in Kalomiris’s Greek opera. These production records show a working musician inside an ensemble, before her later fame as a recitalist.

Her recordings place intimacy and musical precision at the centre. Eight Greek Folk Songs, recorded with pianist André Collard in May 1954, bring Greek traditional material into the recital studio. They sit alongside French mélodies and German Lieder in her discography. Ravel’s Greek-song settings offer a distinct art-song treatment of Greek melodies. In May 1955 she recorded Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer (Poem of Love and the Sea), with the London Philharmonic and Louis de Froment, joining voice to orchestral colour.

At the 1961 BBC Proms she sang Ravel’s Shéhérazade under Basil Cameron. In 1964 she participated in the Oxford premiere of Greek composer Jani Christou’s Tongues of Fire, a Pentecost oratorio drawing on Greek sacred texts. This range connects Greek composition and traditional song with international modern music; the languages and demands vary from work to work.

Kolassi’s archive offers an accessible first encounter through its online bilingual description at the Music Library of Greece “Lilian Voudouri” in Athens. Find παρτιτούρες, επιστολές and φωτογραφίες and match them to scores, letters and photographs. Compare what each document might reveal. Write Στην παρτιτούρα βλέπω νότες and Στην επιστολή διαβάζω ένα μήνυμα, then join a contrast with ενώ. Explain which source you would use to study a collaboration or a sound. The collection also contains recorded material; a photograph alone cannot tell you exactly how a voice sounded. This B1 activity develops document vocabulary and reasoned comparisons in Modern Greek. Her French songs remain French listening material.

• Studied piano and singing at the Hellenic Conservatory.
• Recorded Eight Greek Folk Songs with André Collard in May 1954.
• Her archive contains twelve boxes and Greek, English and French material.