‘Renato Mordo: The Hours’: Tribute to great Greek-Austrian Jewish opera director

Many Jewish communities in Macedonia and Thrace disappeared in the Holocaust, yet their presence in the places where their communities once thrived is still palpable. These are places, after all, which are defined by a multicultural legacy and a respect for history that expresses itself in myriad ways.

One of these is the last of two concerts on July 9 at the archaeological site at Abdera in Xanthi, which shines a spotlight on the life and work of an important Greek-Austrian Jew, Renato Mordo (1894-1955). He was born in Austria in 1804 to a Corfiot father and an Austrian mother and studied German culture, literature and the history of art and music in Vienna before going on to the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in the same city.

His professional career started as a stage director in 1917 in Poland and went on to include important posts in Germany, where his work...