“Benda understood music not as ‘filler’ to illustrate the actor’s movement action, but as a direct and compact part of the action, which is ingeniously combined with the content. He thus created a new form of drama – melodrama.”

Gabriela Špalková

František Xaver Richter:
Symphony in G minor with fugue Op. 29

Jiří Antonín Benda:
Medea

Benda’s fundamental melodrama from 1775, based on a text by Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter, tells the story of a famous Greek fable about Medea, the jealous wife of Iason.

Performance in Czech translation by Zdeněk Cupák

photogallery