On Friday 6 March 2009 the Greek premiere of the opera “Rusalka” by the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák took place at the Greek National Opera in Athens. To mark this historic occasion an international music seminar “Antonín Dvořák: Rusalka” was held on Tuesday 24 February 2009 at the Olympia theatre, seat of the Greek National Opera. The seminar was initiated by the Czech diplomatic mission and carried out with the Greek National Opera.

A distinguished Czech musicologist and currently external professor at the Department of Musicology of Masaryk University in Brno Dr. Vlasta Reittererová opened the seminar with a lecture entitled “Two worlds in Dvořák´s Rusalka”. In a short introduction she familiarized the Greek public with the historical role of the Czech lands, situated in the centre of Europe, in the framework of the awakening of national consciousness of the European nations at the end of the 18th century and with the significance of the endeavour of the Czech nation to create Czech national music. Further she concentrated on the personality of Dvořák and on his work. In the second part of the lecture Dr. Reittererová spoke not only about the origin of the opera, its staging and its musical structure, but also referred to the language of  Kvapil´s libretto and the main characters of the opera, which represent two worlds confronting each other - the human world and the world of fairytale beings. Dr. Reittererová ended her speech with a music extract from the closing scene of “Rusalka”, which is regarded as one of the most lyrical arias in Czech opera.

The next speaker, professor of historical musicology of the National and Kapodistrian University in Athens Dr. Nikos Maliaras included composers and works of the Greek national music school in the European music context. He dedicated the substantial part of his lecture to the characters of naiads, nymphs and in general to the existence and the role of natural characters and fairies in the European music of the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Finally, a representative of the production team, scenographer Thierry Good from Switzerland, contributed to the seminar. He briefly presented a modernistic approach of the first staging of “Rusalka” in Greece, the plot of which does not take place in Czech woods and lakes but is based on the real life of Ludwig II of Bavaria and deals with one possible symbolic interpretation of “Rusalka”.

After a short discussion, which, among others, indicated the inclination of the visitors of the seminar rather to the classical that to the experimental staging of “Rusalka”, reception and participation in an afternoon rehearsal followed.