Kostas MYLONAS, Edehna tragoudia
For a long time the recordings of Greek tenor Kostas Milonas (1897- 1949) still a mystery tenor if there ever was one and perhaps better known as Costa Milona were only to be found on a rare LP issue called The pocket Caruso (Sunday Opera SYO2). Now a Greek label has finally released a CD with rare recordings of Greek, Italian and other songs and also three operatic items. Biographical material on this remarkable voice is scare. Juan Dzazopoulos once wrote a biography for The Record Collector and Dutch collector Peter Hulpusch wrote another –more extended -biography for the German record collector magazine “Stimmen die um die Welt gingen…”. Milona spent the major part of his life in Berlin (1922-1945) where he also made all his recordings including sadly enough also Nazi inspired propaganda records. The last years of his life were spent in poverty and he ended up in London where he died of a heart disease. In spite of a practically non-existent stage career he nevertheless recorded quite a lot.
The present CD is a tribute to the tenor’s wonderful and powerful spinto voice. These extremely rare recordings display a genuine mediteranean timbre and a tenore robusto with a rich middle register. There’s a splendid heroic ring to his singing but also some fine phrasing. The transfers of the 26 items are in general fine and in relation to the rarity of the records do occasionally vary. There is a 12 page booklet included with some rare photographs (6) but the text is in Greek only. The apparently privately issued CD is available on-line through Greek internet record business and costs a mere 10 Euros. For those interest try www.musical.gr (type in milonas). If you are a tenor man/woman grab this release asap as it is one of the kind which will disappear soon and forever and you will be the loser as Kostas Mylonas is a tenor voice to treasure.
RvdB