La Gioconda
La Gioconda is a 2025 production of Ponchielli's opera by the Greek National Opera, opening its 2025/26 season on 19 October 2025 at the Stavros Niarchos Hall in a new international co-production directed by Oliver Mears.
La Gioconda is a production of Amilcare Ponchielli’s opera of the same name by the Greek National Opera, staged at the Stavros Niarchos Hall of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre on the Faliro coast. It opened the company’s 2025/26 season on 19 October 2025 and ran for seven performances: 19, 22, 25 and 29 October and 1, 4 and 7 November.
The staging was a new international co-production with the Salzburg Easter Festival and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Oliver Mears, the Royal Opera’s artistic director, directed the production; Fabrizio Ventura conducted. The dramatic soprano Anna Pirozzi sang the title role, with Anita Rachvelishvili, Dimitri Platanias and Tassos Apostolou also in the cast. La Gioconda was the opera in which Maria Callas made her professional stage debut, in Verona in 1947.
The Stavros Niarchos Hall is the principal stage of the Greek National Opera within the Renzo Piano–designed Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre, a complex that also houses the National Library of Greece.