2026
“My Dear Benediktas…” is a theatrical artistic composition that creatively combines documentary motifs from the letters of Count Benediktas Emanuelis Tiškevičius and his wife with nineteenth-century poetry. The letters serve as inspiration, revealing the couple’s personal experiences, the everyday life of the manor, and the historical context, while the poetry provides a broader cultural and emotional dimension.
The surviving envelopes, bearing addresses from various European cities, testify to the Counts’ extensive travels and cultural connections across Europe. In the performance, these historical traces become a dramaturgical motif, exploring the nineteenth-century themes of mobility, distance, and longing.
The dramaturgy of the composition is conceived as a dialogue between documentary evidence and literature, between the authentic personal voice and the poetic language of the era. Through this interplay, the performance seeks not only to present historical facts but also to evoke the atmosphere of the period, its emotional sensitivity, and the aesthetic worldview of the nineteenth century.
The performance featured professional actors Vigita Rudytė and Arvydas Šaučiūnas, accompanied by live music by one of Lithuania’s leading contemporary pianists, Darius Mažintas, and Vytenis Gurstis, flautist of the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre. Their performance created a subtle musical backdrop that enhanced the emotional impact of the work, with music serving as a bridge between the text and the historic setting.
The production was staged in one of the historic outbuildings of Raudondvaris Manor, allowing audiences to experience the performance within the authentic surroundings of the manor park. This artistic choice merged architecture, landscape, and performance into a unified experience, where the historical environment became an active part of the artistic narrative.
Director: Ramūnas Šimukauskas
Cast:
- Vigita Rudytė – the Countess
- Arvydas Šaučiūnas – the Count
- Urtė Kamisaraitytė, Gustė Milbutaitė, and Smiltė Staškūnaitė – the young Countesses
Music performed by: Darius Mažintas and Vytenis Gurstis
Premiere: 6 July 2026
Admission: Free of charge.
The project was partially funded by the Kaunas District Municipality under the “Contemporary Elderships” programme.
