From the ages of eleven to fourteen, when Mitropoulos was in secondary school, he would host and preside over informal musical gatherings at his house every Saturday afternoon.

At a 1930 concert with the Berlin Philharmonic, finding that his soloist was sick, he played the solo part of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No.

In 1955, Philharmonic's performance under Mitropoulos at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus was the main event of the inaugural edition of Athens Festival.

His musically incisive and dramatically vivid performances of Puccini, Verdi, Richard Strauss and others remain models of the opera conductor's art.

Many of these have been reissued by Sony Classics on CD, including most recently his stereo recordings of excerpts from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.

Mitropoulos was noted for having an eidetic memory (which enabled him to conduct without a score, even during rehearsals) and for his monk-like life style due to his deeply religious, Greek Orthodox beliefs.

[9] Mitropoulos died in Milan, Italy at the age of 64 of heart failure, while rehearsing Mahler's Third Symphony at the La Scala Opera House.

One of his last recorded performances was Verdi's La forza del destino with Giuseppe Di Stefano, Antonietta Stella and Ettore Bastianini in Vienna on 23 September 1960.