Following Symphonie fantastique and Harold en Italie, Roméo et Juliette was Hector Berlioz's third and most ambitious symphony, and it was the product of the composer's obsessions with Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, William Shakespeare's plays, and the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, whom Berlioz saw in a stage production of Romeo and Juliet in 1827 and later married. This 2016 release on LSO Live by Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra features mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina, tenor Kenneth Tarver, and ...
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Following Symphonie fantastique and Harold en Italie, Roméo et Juliette was Hector Berlioz's third and most ambitious symphony, and it was the product of the composer's obsessions with Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, William Shakespeare's plays, and the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, whom Berlioz saw in a stage production of Romeo and Juliet in 1827 and later married. This 2016 release on LSO Live by Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra features mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina, tenor Kenneth Tarver, and bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin as the vocal soloists, and the Guildhall School Singers and the London Symphony Chorus, an impressive assembly of artists who bring across Berlioz's innovative score with great polish and dramatic power. This compelling performance was part of an eight-concert series that toured Europe in 2013, and the concert at London's Barbican was recorded in multichannel audio, which offers superb clarity of details and vivid sonorities. The most popular...
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