Perhaps more of a shriek than an aria. Semiha Berksoy (1910–2004) was never afraid to shock, as this major retrospective devoted to the soprano-turned-painter will confirm.
Semiha Berksoy is among the most important artists of the early Republican era and one of the first internationally known Turkish artists. Berksoy was cast in the first Turkish sound film in 1931 and the first Turkish opera commissioned by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1934. In 1939, for the 75th birthday of Richard Strauss in Berlin, she sang the role of Ariadne in ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’, becoming the first Turkish prima donna to perform on stage in Europe. While Berksoy painted throughout her life, having studied art as a teenager, it was only in the 1960s that she started focusing more on painting. Besides her accomplishments as a singer, Berksoy’s work in fine art has also gained wide international recognition.
