Dreams come alive in the Cyclades

Mike Salvagos, of Chios extraction, first took the initiative to form a mutal company to collect money for the construction of the city's Theatre and the "Hellas Club" (today's Cultural Centre) on municipal building lots.

The Italian municipal architect P. Sambo undertook the design of the APOLLO Theater and supervised its conslruction; the theatre is considered to be a miniature of La Scala of Milan in its original form. Work on the APOLLO Theatre started in March 1862. Its inauguration was held on 20 April 1864 with a performance of Verdi's Opera "Rigoletto" by an Italian Opera Company. The music teacher Frederick Stevens, who produced many shows in those days, staged the production. The APOLLO stage featured operas, operettas, and musicals (since 1900) with stars of the Italian and Greek Lyric Theatre of those years, such as Elsa Engel, Kavafakis. Paola Nicolescu and Dramalis. Plays were also presented with top Greek actors, including E. Pantopoulos, M. Myrat, Edm. Furst, T. Lepeniotis, P. Gabrielides, Vasili Argyropoulos, M. Katrakis, the songwriter Attik, Eleni Chalkousi, Laoutari, Kybeli Andrianou, Rosalie Nika, Katherine Veroni and Marika Kotopouli. The latter was featured quite often at the APOLLO Theatre. On 24 March 1953 she gave the last performance of her life at this theatre in the play ''Shadow" of Dario Nicodemi. This was also the last major performance at APOLLO. With the passage of years the theatre suffered signiticant damage.

Restoration work, recently completed, was accomplished with designs by architect Peter Pikionis, approved by the Ministry of Culture, with the supervision and collaboration oi Municipal Technical Services. The Municipality sincerely thanks all who worked for many years in whichever position they held, struggling for the restoration of the APOLLO Theatre, especially at the Ministry of Culture and the European Union.