Nicholas A. Peppas, Ph.D.

Extracurricular Activities

Nicholas (Nikolaos) Athanasiou Peppas was born and raised in Athens, Greece. He studied chemical engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (Dipl. Eng., 1971) and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sc. D., 1973). While at MIT, he pursued a minor in comparative linguistics.

Peppas’ extracurricular interests include Byzantine history of the 10h and 11th century, European history of the 19th century, opera, and operatic record collecting. His interest in history was initiated at an early age through the influence with several family members who were archaeologists (his maternal great-grandfather, Athanasios Rousopoulos (1823-98), was Professor of Archaeology at the University of Athens (1858-80)) or historians, including his father Athanasios Peppas (1903-83). Since 1966, he has studied Greek and Byzantine history, and has specialized in the times of the Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire and more specifically the period 976 to 1025. He has published twenty-six articles on the Byzantine Empire, the history of Attica and related subjects.

He has also contributed numerous articles to various literary journals. For example, he was a major contributor to the 1968 and 1978 Tourist Guides of Greece (Institute of Tourist Publications, Athens, Greece). More recently, he has contributed articles in the magazines Eleusinian, and Hellenic Chronicle, and the newspapers Kathimerini (Daily), and Vima (Tribune). He is the author of an unpublished book on the Genealogy of Emperors of the Byzantine Empire. While at MIT, Peppas pursued a minor in comparative linguistics, with studies of French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, and Russian.

Peppas is an avid operaphile. His introduction to music was through studies of the Byzantine Music (1964-67) in the class of Diamantis S. Mavraganis (1932- ) in the Greek Conservatory of Music. Although he never completed these studies, due to his more practical interests, he continued his musical studies in classical voice (baritone, 1967-71).

Since 1976 he has published essays, analyses and critiques, especially about Italian, French and romantic German opera. He has published in Fanfare, High Fidelity, Stereo Review, International Opera Record Collector and other magazines. He is presently preparing a book on Athenian Opera and Operetta from 1895 to 1930 and editing his book Discography of Greek Opera Singers to be published in 2008.

Since 1997, he has concentrated his research on the biographies of a number of noted Greek opera singers of the past. He has prepared extensive biographies and annotated discographies of the tenor of the Berlin Staatsoper and the New York City Opera Vassos Argyris (1907-76), the tenor of La Scala Nicola Filacuridi (1924- ), the soprano of the Paris Opera Elen Dosia (1913-2002), the celebrated Greek tenor Michael Theodore (1939- ) who had a radio and record career in Germany, the lyric tenor Antonios Delendas (1902-1966), the celebrated Greek soprano of the Scala di Milano Rena Garyfallaki (Rena Gary Falachi, 1920- ), the bass Petros Hoidas (1914-1977), the tenor of the Lyric Opera of Athens Nikos Hatzinikolaou (1929- ), and the internationally known Greek singers Nicola Zaccaria (1923- ), Nicola Moscona (1907-1975), Costas Paskalis (1929-2007), Efthymios Mihalopoulos (1937- ), and Pavlos Raptis (1938- ).

His extensive collection of operatic 78-rpm records includes many rare Berliner, red, orange, purple and black Gramophone and Typewriter (G&T), Fonotipia, green and blue Zonophone, predog Victor, Odeon, Pathé, Favorite, ERA, Eaglephone, Fonotecnica, Aria Disc, Beka, Ancor, Homokord and Phonodisc-Mondial records from the period of 1898 to 1912. Peppas has an extensive collection of early records by Greek opera singers of the 1895-1925 period. These include very rare records of Pericles Aravantinos (Aramis, 1854-1932), Giovanni Apostolou (1860-1905), David Yuzhin (1868-1923), Nikos Moraitis (1880-1938), Mihalis Vlachopoulos (1873-1956), Eleni Theodoridou-Vlachopoulou (1885-1936), Thalia Sabanieva (1895-1965), Heracles Economides (1882-1964), Costa Milona (1897-1949), Lyssander Ioannides (1900-?), Cristy Solari (1888-1974), Ulysses Lappas (1881-1971), Dimitris Kryonas (1886-1946), Anna Kryona (1890-?), Artemis Kyparissi (1885-1968), Nikos Kokkinis (1862- ), Stella Kokkini (1870-1940), and Heracles Pashalides (1878-1938). He has also rare recordings of the 1930-40 period by Vassos Argyris (1907-76), Elen Dosia (1913-2002), Tanos Ferendinos (1916-?), Antonios Delendas (1902-66), and Margherita Perras (1908-84).

He is a member of the Lirica di Parma and the Metropolitan Opera Guild, and was listed in the 1993 Who's Who in Music.

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