| Konstantinos (Kostas) Mylonas was born in Keratea
(an area just east of Athens, Greece) on the 3rd of February
1897.
His father Stamatis and his mother Eugenia were illiterate
and very poor farmers. His father died while Kostas was
still a child and so Kostas was sent to work for a French
mining company in Plaka, outside nearby Lavrion. A man
named Kiriakidi heard him singing and sent him to the Athens
Conservatory, paying also for his board and lodging. He
remained in the Conservatory from 1908 to 1918, studying
Byzantine Church Music, singing and drama.
Mylonas made his first stage appearance not as a singer
but as an actor in two plays produced by the Drama School
of the Conservatory, in March 1917, "Medea" and "Gynecomachia" by
playwright Legouvé. One month after, in april 1917,
he started appearing in student concerts, in some of them
accompanied by Dimitri Mitropoulos at the piano.
He graduated in June 1920 with "excellent" grades
both in "singing" and "history of music".
Before the year was over he left Greece forever. He never
came back to his home country.
He went to Italy, most probably directly to Milan. It
was there that he studied with maestro Giuseppe Borghi.
It was in Milan too that his problems started as he had
a love affair with Eugenia Montrasio, the wife of a hard-drinking
and cruel Italian. Kostas and Eugenia had three children:
Mariuzza, Constantino and Eugenia.
About 1922/3 Mylonas established himself in Berlin, where
he made all his records for German companies such as Parlophon,
Homocord, Vox, Kristal and Reklame, from 1922 to 1945.
Very little is known of his artistic career. In February
1923 he appeared at the Grand-Théâtre in Montecarlo,
singing in "Tristan und Isolde" the role of
a sailor (as "Costa") and the role of the shepherd
(as "Milonas"). After that there is a nine
years gap without any information on his artistic activities.
There are unconfirmed appearances at the Vienna Staatsoper
in 1932.
There is another two-year gap and then we have in 1934
a concert for K.R.O. radio station in Holland with the
Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra conducted by Henri van Goudoever.
It seems that he also worked in Berlin as teacher of singing
from 1935 to 1937.
On June 24 and 26 of 1938 there are two "guest" performances
at the Deutsches Oper in Berlin, as Rodolfo in "La
Boheme", and on June 29 another guest appearance
as Canio in "Pagliacci".
There are unconfirmed performances in Frankfurt am Oder
during the period 1937/1942.
On 20 july 1944 there was a recital in Strasbourg and
from 1944/5 recording sessions of spoken records for The
Grammophone Co. that remained unpublished. His last artistic
activities seem to have been some concerts in Berlin, in
1946.
In June 1946 he notified the Berlin police that he was
going to leave the country. He was penniless and received
some money from a certain Mrs. Young, a fairly rich, elderly
lady who had lived in Berlin and had been Mylona's
close friend and confident for 13 years but now was living
in London.
On June 8, 1946 the Greek tenor started for London where
he met Mrs. Young. All his possessions were packed in a
single old and torn suitcase. In spite of Mrs Young's
generosity his condition did not improve. In April 1948
he wrote to an old Greek friend Giorgios Lambrou who lived
in Tucson (Arizona): "I have been brought to ruin
by the war". But his own nature was also to blame
for his ruin. Mrs. Young later told his daughter Eugenia: "if
he made 500 marks, he would send 200 to his children and
200 to his mother". Mr. Lambrou sent him 500 dollars,
which were found in an English bank account to his name,
after Milona's death.
He was so poor that Mrs. Young ordered a suit and a coat
for him, but he did not live long enough to wear them.
On the 27 of March of 1949, Costa Milona died of heart
disease and was buried at the Hendon Park Cemetery-Crematorium,
London, grave N° 62.259. The 500 dollars covered only
part of the funeral expenses. Mrs. Young paid the rest.
His grave bears the following inscription in English:
"Costa Mylonas/In memory of my dearest friend/The Greek
tenor"
and below, in German:
Was ich in der verloren/weiss nur mein Herz allein
(What I have lost in him/My heart alone knows)
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