Partner George Theophanopoulos-Hatzidakis
Queer Places:
Glyfada Golf Club of Athens, Kon/nou Karamanli, Glifada 166 10, Greece
Paiania Cemetery
Paiania, Regional unit of East Attica, Attica, Greece
Manos Hatzidakis (23 October 1925 – 15 June 1994) was a Greek composer and theorist of Greek music, widely considered to be one of the greatest greek composers and one of the most globally recognised.[1] His legacy and contribution are widespread among the works of contemporary Greek music, through the second half of the 20th and into the 21st century. He was also one of the main proponents of the "Éntekhno" form of music (along with Mikis Theodorakis). In 1960, he received an Academy Award for Best Original Song for his song Never on Sunday from the film of the same name.
Hatzidakis was openly gay. He simply loved and fell in love all the time, without fanfare or reserve.
In the late 1970s and beginning of the 1980s, cultural life in Greece was dominated by three gay men: besides Hadjidakis there was the painter
Yiannis Tsarouchis, and the theatrical director
Karolos Koun, each one crucially influencing different domains and all together inspiring Greece’s overall culture after WW2. They were all openly gay, and at the same time friends with the (very strictly straight) President of the Republic Constantine Karamanlis. On Sundays, they’d often dine together at the Glyfada Golf Club, never matter who was what or who they fell in love with.
Hatzidakis was living together with a younger man, George Theophanopoulos,
for many years. Since gay marriage or variations thereof were not available
then, he adopted his lover, so that he would inherit him after his death. The
Greek parliament didn't like this: after the composer's death they voted in a
law that would forbid a man adopting another man if the latter was over the
age of 18.
Hatzidakis was born on 23 October 1925 in Xanthi, Greece, to lawyer Georgios Hatzidakis, who came from the village of Myrthios, Agios Vasileios in the Rethymno prefecture in Crete; and Aliki Arvanitidou, who came from Adrianoupolis. His musical education began at the age of four and consisted of piano lessons from the Armenian pianist Anna Altunian. At the same time, he learned to play the violin and the accordion.
After the separation of his parents, Hatzidakis moved permanently to Athens in 1932 with his mother. A few years later in 1938, his father died in an aircraft accident. This event, in combination with the beginning of World War II, brought the family into a difficult financial situation. The young Hatzidakis earned his livelihood as a docker at the port, an ice seller at the Fix factory, an employee in Megalokonomou's photography shop and as an assistant nurse at the 401 Military Hospital.
At the same time, he expanded his musical knowledge by studying advanced music theory with Menelaos Pallandios, in the period 1940-1943. At the same time, he studied philosophy at the University of Athens. However, he never completed this course. During this period, he met and connected with other musicians, writers and intellectuals. Among these were Nikos Gatsos, George Seferis, Odysseas Elytis, Angelos Sikelianos and the artist Yannis Tsarouchis. During the last period of the Axis occupation of Greece, he was an active participant in the Greek Resistance through membership of the United Panhellenic Organization of Youth (EPON), the youth branch of the major resistance organisation EAM, where he met Mikis Theodorakis with whom he soon developed a strong friendship.
Although he had made a statement on the exigency of Greece's entrance to the EEC (European Economic Community, later: European Union), he believed that within the European realm, Greece would be culturally assimilated completely.[2][3]
In the later years of his life, Hatzidakis explained that his work was meant not to entertain but to reveal. Further, he disclaimed part of his work, written for the Greek cinema and theater, as non-representative contract undertaking of his.[4][5]
In 1972 he returned to Greece and recorded "The Great Erotic", in which he put great poetry from throughout the ages to music. The male parts were sung by Dimitris Psarianos and the female parts by Fleurie Dadonaki. One of the poems that he used was Days of 1903 by great gay poet
Constantine P. Cavafy. The song describes a one-night-stand that left an indelible impression on the poet. He was, however, never able to find that person again. In the same record, there's a song based on a poem by
Sappho, the famous Classical Greek woman poet from Lesbos, about woman to woman love.
Together with Aris Davarakis he collaborated writing San Palio Cinema, a huge hit in the country: music composed by a 50-year old gay man, with the verse of a 20 year-old gay writer; an erotic song, still played on the Greek radio-waves, loved by the gay and straight alike.
Hatzidakis and Davarakis openly flirted with anyone they happened to like,
they laughed, and enjoyed life as it came. Their otherness, their sexuality,
their love affairs, and relationships were never a problem. In 1980, in his first interview,
Davarakis simply and matter-of-factly came out as gay without any second thoughts.
He died on 15 June 1994 in Athens at the age of 68, from acute pulmonary edema. His estate and archives were bequeathed to his adopted son, George Theophanopoulos-Hatzidakis. In 1999 the City of Athens dedicated Technopolis in his memory. He was buried in Paiania.
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