Melodrama: Melos + Drama: Music and Theatre. The classical myth and the classical idiom of Georg Anton Benda in Medea. The Camerata Musicians, with period instruments and 18th-century sounds, accompany Karyofyllia Karabeti, one of the greatest contemporary theatrical Medeas. Groundbreaking for its time, this genre impressed 22-year-old Mozart, who wrote to his father: ‘…nothing ever surprised me so much…there is no singing in it, but merely recitation, to which the music is a sort of obligato recitativo. At intervals there is speaking while the music goes on, which produces the most striking effect.’ [12 Nov. 1778]
The evening opens with mature Mozart in his last symphony, No. 41 in C major, the Jupiter Symphony with its masterly finale, the culmination of the great Austrian composer’s orchestral oeuvre.
– Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551
– Georg Anton Benda: ‘Medea’, one-act melodrama
Karyofyllia Karabeti in the role of Medea
The Camerata–Friends of Music Orchestra Musicians (on period instruments)
Conducted by Markellos Chrysikopoulos