Hector Berlioz News
French composer and conductor (1803–1869)
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2024-03-19
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2024-03-13 08:05:00
Little short of a revelation: Michael Spyres, Les Talens Lyriques & Christophe Rousset explore Wagner's influences with In the Shadows
In the Shadows: Auber, Bellini, Berlioz, Halévy, Méhul, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Spontini, Weber, Wagner; Michael Spyres, Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset; EratoReviewed 12 March 2024A wonderfully imaginative recital, showcasing both the wide range and variety of Wagner's musical influences as well as Spyres' own virtuosity and adaptabilityThe mature Richard Wagner would have wanted you to think that his art sprang directly from his imagination, without the influence of other composers, but the reality was more complex. The young Richard was something of a sponge, soaking up influences from all over. For instance, in 1833 Würzburg Theatre staged Giacomo Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable (premiered in Paris in 1831), it was the operatic event of the year. Richard Wagner's brother Albert was singing the title role and had managed to get Richard a job as chorus master at the theatre. 20-year-old Richard rehearsed the choruses of Meyerbeer's opera and this first exposure to the piece […]
2024-02-20 10:00:00
From Harald en Italie to Le prophète in New York: 2024 Bard Summerscape focuses on Berlioz and his world
Fisher Center at Bard College (Photo: Peter Aaron '68/Esto) The Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College in the Hudson Valley, New York City, presents an annual Summerscape festival and this year there are eight weeks of opera, theatre, dance and a music festival from 20 June to 18 August 2024. The theme of the music festival is Berlioz and His World. Alongside wide-ranging concerts of music by Berlioz and his contemporaries, there is a rare staging of Meyerbeer's Le prophète (26 July to 4 August) directed by Christian Räth, with the American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leon Botstein and featuring Robert Watson (Siegmund in Dmitri Tcherniakov’s new production of Die Walküre at the Staatsoper, Berlin) in the title role plus Jennifer Feinstein as Fidès. Meyerbeer's Le prophète featured at the Metropolitan Opera in 1918 as a vehicle for Enrico Caruso, and returned in 1977 with James McCracken and Marilyn Horne, since then I am […]
The Boston Musical Intelligencer
2024-02-17 13:50:36
[…] Carvalho had taken charge. A handful of “active conductors” got extensive directing time with the BMC orchestra; Charles Dutoit was one of these, as were Harold Farberman of the BSO’s percussion section (30 years later I had very good lessons from him at the Conductors Institute in South Carolina), and a very able Norwegian, Sverre Bruland; the younger conducting students, not “actives,” included John Harbison. Charles Munch was on campus, of course, directing BSO concerts. Berlioz’s Grande messe des morts, the Requiem, was on the menu, and Lorna Cooke de Varon and Alfred Nash Patterson took turns rehearsing every available choral voice, including all the composers’, for the eventual performance, and so it was that I sang as an anonymous chorister under Munch’s direction, just that one time. Munch took no part in running the BMC, which was overseen that summer by Aaron Copland, Ralph Berkowitz, and a few others. […]
2024-02-13 23:03:00
After the question arose elsewhere, I asked San Francisco Symphony about Seiji Ozawa's appearances with SFS after he stepped down as music director. Here's the answer:After the 1976-77 season, Ozawa conducted:January 11-14, 1978 – Tchaikovsky Swan LakeJanuary 18-21, 1978 – Brahms Symphony No. 3 & Roger Sessions When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'dNovember 9, 1986 – Pension Fund Concert – Ravel’s La Valse, Schumann’s Symphony No. 2, and Kei Anjo’s Who-ei for Erh-hu and OrchestraFebruary 23, 1993 – Pension Fund Concert – Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and Bernstein’s The Age of AnxietyOctober 29, 2001 – Pension Fund Concert – Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 and Berlioz Symphonie fantastique Ozawa also came to Davies Symphony Hall with the BSO twice (March 12, 1981 and February 13, 1996) and Saito Kinen Orchestra once (January 7, 2001).
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