GREECE SETS THE STAGE FOR EUROPEAN ARTS FAIR

Her tousled blond hair spills across her worry-lined brow and the large eyes that once capitvated moviegoers everywhere are rimmed by deepening blue circles that suggest near exhaustion.

But Melina Mercouri, movie star-turned-politician and member of the inner circle of Greece’s Socialist government, is on top of the world at age 60, fending off the electronic homogenization of European culture by American TV.

“We are very concerned about our identity, and we’re very much afraid of what will happen to it when satellite and cable TV spread everywhere,” she growled in the same husky voice that drew raves in the film “Never on Sunday.”

“We know the Americans will take over and dominate the television, so it was obvious that we Europeans had to do something.”

So she did. As minister of culture in the government of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, Mercouri has spruced up Athens for its six-monthlong debut as the “Culture Capital of Europe.” Beginning June 21, all-star contributions of art, drama, music, film and assorted entertainments and exhibitions from other member countries of the European Economic Community will be appearing there.

The Mercouri-inspired counterattack against U.S.-style homogenization of the arts so captivated other European culture ministers and their governments that the idea of an annual movable culture feast has taken hold even before opening day in Athens.

Next year the Culture Capital will be Florence, and the year after that, probably Amsterdam. Many other European cities are lining up for their turn, according to Mercouri’s brother, Spiros, who serves in her ministry as coordinator of the project.

“Every year a different European capital to which we can send our writers and artists and performers,” Mercouri, the creator of it all, exclaimed proudly.

But despite the primary aim of defending Europe against pop trends from across the Atlantic, the program will not be entirely continental; neither does it altogether dismiss elements of American culture that long ago spread to Europe and beyond.

“We are not making something provocative,” she said. “We don’t want a closed-door cultural life.”

The door appeared to be wide open as she enthusiastically described some of the more than 100 major events that are expected to elevate Greek spirits--and Greek tourist revenues--between June 21 and Dec. 31 this year.

Among the most offbeat will be summer performances of a still-to-be-chosen play by the 5th-Century BC playwright Euripides in the beautifully preserved open-air theater at Delphi. This is not unusual for a summer’s evening in the ancient shrine, but the cast of players--a troupe of Canadian Eskimos--must represent an artistic milestone in theater history.

Another cultural first will be the debut of a Soviet rock opera--cast and theme still to be announced--at the Veakio Theatre in Athens’ port city of Piraeus. “It’s a very amusing thing and very exciting,” Mercouri said.

Still another event of distinctly non-European origin will be two nights of jazz with Miles Davis, at the Lycabettus Theatre in early July. This is to be followed, a week later, by an all-Europe jazz festival.

Heavier contributions range from the Ibsen play, “John Gabriel Bjorkman,” directed by Sweden’s Ingmar Bergman, to Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus,” performed by the National Theatre of Britain.

Medieval dancers, jugglers, sword-eaters and tumblers will stroll the Roman Agora in Athens, and dozens of world-famous orchestras and ensembles will play at theaters and concert halls in and around the city. These offerings will include Leonard Bernstein conducting his Third Symphony with the European Community Youth Orchestra, and the National Symphony of Washington, D.C., conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich.

“It has become almost a cultural Olympics, a competition to send the very best,” said Michael Coutouzis, a foreign affairs adviser who, like most employees of the Culture Ministry (including Mercouri’s husband, Jules Dassin), is devoting almost full time to the program. “We needed an institution to draw together the multiplicity of European cultures and to show their unity, and now we have it.”

A welcome side effect of the event, Coutouzis said, will be to draw European politicians together to do something more interesting than argue over community agricultural policies. He said that most of the major national leaders, including President Francois Mitterrand of France, Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany and Prime Minister Bettino Craxi of Italy, will join Greece’s Prime Minister Papandreou for the opening “Day of Music” ceremonies on June 21.

“It will be the first time these leaders have gotten together to promote and discuss culture and not economics,” Coutouzis said.

To create the right ambiance for the half-year of festivities, Mercouri and her colleagues have bought a theater complex in downtown Athens, expanded the city’s art museums, created a model traditional Greek port near the airport, converted three old rock quarries into outdoor theaters and turned factory warehouses into theaters and a huge old pier in Piraeus into a restaurant-arts center.

“It’s been a lot of work,” Spiros Mercouri said.

The cost to Greece so far has not been great, he said, about $5 million, which the Greek National Tourist Organization considers a bargain in view of the number of visitors the event is expected to draw.

“Demand for beds is already fantastic,” said Nikos V. Skoulas, secretary general of the tourist organization. “We will have at least a 12% gain this year over the 6 million visitors we had last year. It’s perfect, because the essence of our tourism always has been cultural.”

But costs will rise as the summer progresses, because Greece has promised free hospitality to the thousands of artists, writers and performers who will be coming to Athens to take part in the program.

Asked how many participants there would be and what arrangements have been made to house, feed and transport them, Spiros Mercouri seemed surprised.

“To tell the truth, I don’t know, but I’m glad you mentioned that,” he said, frowning. “It’s something we haven’t thought about yet, and your question reminds me that we’d better get busy.”