Rita Antonopoulou

Rita Antonopoulou was born and grew up in Athens; her published biography gives no birth year. She began lessons in modern singing at eighteen while studying graphic design at the School of Graphic Arts and Artistic Studies in Athens, and she also studied English, French and Spanish. Her first work was on small Athens stages with various groups, singing songs by Greek composers. At twenty she started classical singing studies, while presenting rock, jazz and funk programmes with bands in Athens and other Greek cities.

In 2000 she began a two-year collaboration with the composer Mimis Plessas, singing in all his concerts. Seminars in acting and singing with Stamatis Kraounakis followed, and he chose her for his music-theatre group Spira Spira. During about two and a half years she appeared in its shows, among them Χορικά (Choral Odes), presented at the Athens Concert Hall and the Little Theatre of Epidaurus in summer 2006.

That same year Thanos Mikroutsikos heard her at an audition and invited her to sing in his appearances at the Athens music venue Σταυρός του Νότου (Southern Cross), alongside Giannis Koutras. The partnership lasted until the end of his life. In 2016 she took over from Christos Thivaios in the music-theatre show 9 και 5 (Nine and Five), with Vasilis Papakonstantinou and texts by Odysseas Ioannou, as it toured outside Athens.

Her first album, Για φωνή και ορχήστρα (For Voice and Orchestra), appeared in October 2007. Mikroutsikos rearranged favourite songs of his for strings and winds only, and the recording was made at the Athens Concert Hall with the Camerata orchestra conducted by Alexandros Myrat. In October 2008 came Πάμε ξανά απ’ την αρχή (Let’s Start Again from the Beginning), with music by Mikroutsikos and lyrics by Odysseas Ioannou. In 2015 the composer Giorgos Andreou released Ζωή μου μην αργείς (My Life, Don’t Be Late) on the label Μικρή Άρκτος, with Antonopoulou as its singer.

In May 2018 she and Kostas Thomaidis completed a new recording of Mikroutsikos’s Καντάτα για τη Μακρόνησο (Cantata for Makronisos), on poetry by Yannis Ritsos, together with his study on poems by Vladimir Mayakovsky. The works had first been recorded in 1976 with Maria Dimitriadi; the composer reorchestrated many parts and called the result a re-creation. It became his last album. Her concerts show another side of interpretation. In Όλες του κόσμου οι φωνές (All the Voices in the World), at the Greek National Opera’s Alternative Stage in March 2024, she sang Greek song settings of poems by Brecht, Lorca, Neruda and others, accompanied only by the pianist Yannis Belonis. A music-theatre show, by contrast, joins songs to spoken texts and staging.

Antonopoulou now carries Mikroutsikos’s songs to new audiences. In June 2025 the Athens Concert Hall opened its garden season with her tribute to him, sung with the band Revans: her first complete tribute without him on stage. In 2019 she also sang at the tribute concert to Mikis Theodorakis at the Panathenaic Stadium. For learners, her programmes offer a concrete task. Open the Greek-language listing for Όλες του κόσμου οι φωνές on the Greek National Opera website and note who sings, who plays and which poets appear. Then describe the evening in Greek with Η τραγουδίστρια ερμηνεύει… (The singer interprets…) and contrast it with a staged show: Η παράσταση συνδυάζει τραγούδι και κείμενο (The show combines song and text). Finally, discuss her own idea: why should a singer not give every song the same feeling?

• She studied graphic design while taking her first singing lessons.
• Besides Greek, she studied English, French and Spanish.
• At a large Theodorakis tribute around 2015 she opened with Όμορφη πόλη (Beautiful City) in Greek and French, then learned that the composer was in the audience.
• The 2018 Cantata for Makronisos CD comes with a 64-page book.