All the torments, interior conflicts, passions and ravings of a great woman in pain

MEDEA

Melodrama by Georg Anton Benda on text by Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter (1775)

Tanja Obalski, Medea

João Luís Paixão, Jason

Laila Neuman, Die Hofmeisterin

Jonas Elzas, Der ältere Knabe

Pibe Baartman, Der jüngere Knabe

ENSEMBLE AURORA:

Enrico Gatti, violin I

Rossella Croce, violin II

Sebastiano Airoldi, viola

Gaetano Nasillo, cello

Research:

Mary Helen Dupree, Jed Wentz

After a long and accurate transcription work from the autograph source of the last version of the author for string quartet, Enrico Gatti brings to light a masterpiece of high drama which has as absolute protagonist a Medea dense in facets of high tension and intense expressiveness.

The performance of Benda’s Medea will take place in a semi-scenic setting in the Festival Oude Muziek in Utrecht and will use a declamation according to the ancient theatrical use of the XVIII century. As Jed Wentz points out «finding an authentic performance style for the spoken text of Benda’s Medea is a challenge. It is clear from the rhetorical sources of the period that declamation in the XVIII century was more musical, closer to singing than stage acting today allows. For this performance we will reconstruct a dramatic style based on historical acting sources, both for the spoken words and the gestures. The combination should, as one treatise put it, send the words “with light and warmth into the hearts of the audience” ».

UTRECHT, FESTIVAL OUDE MUZIEK

3, 4, 5 september 2014 - 15.00

THEATER KIKKER, Ganzenmarkt 14 Utrecht