Welcome back to Al-Monitor Istanbul.

This week, we return to one of Turkey’s most quietly compelling artistic families, led by Semiha Berksoy and brought into focus by “Aria of All Colors,” the expansive exhibition currently on view at Istanbul Modern. Resilience seems to be the right theme as we commemorate the victims of the Feb. 6, 2023 earthquake that has devastated Turkey’s eastern provinces. We also check in on Istanbul’s design calendar, follow letters as they turn into art at Casa Botter and pause to deliver our verdict on an old restaurant.

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Nazlan (@NazlanEr on X)

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1. Leading the week: Three women and an aria of colors

A detail from Zeliha Berksoy’s “Feast at the Prison” (Photo courtesy of Istanbul Modern)

Creative families are hardly rare in Turkey, yet few unfold with the clarity and persistence of the Berksoy female line. It begins with Fatma Saime Hanim, an Ottoman female artist whose life and work remain lightly documented, though it is known that she contributed to the early development of the plastic arts in Turkey and helped open pathways for subsequent female artists such as Hale Asaf.

Her daughter, Semiha Berksoy (1910-2004), carried that legacy forward with uncommon force. Trained at the Istanbul Municipal Conservatory, she became the first Turkish soprano to appear on a major European opera stage, performing Ariadne in “Ariadne auf Naxos” at the Berlin State Opera. Back in Turkey, she gave voice to the republic’s cultural ambitions through landmark works such as “Ozsoy,” composed by Ahmet Adnan Saygun in 1934 at the request of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as the first Turkish opera. But opera never contained her.

Alongside the stage, Berksoy painted relentlessly, producing self-portraits, portraits of loved ones, opera-inspired scenes and large-scale works that turned memory, desire and performance into image. She wrote short........

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