Berlioz Party

08.09.2019

Benvenutto Cellini- H. Berlioz at the Opéra Royal de Versailles (semi-staged performance)

Benvenuto Cellini - Michael Spyres

Teresa - Sophia Burgos

Balducci - Maurizio Muraro

Pope Clement VII - Tareq Nazmi

Francesco - Vincent Delhoume

Fieramosca - Lionel Lhote

Ascanio - Adèle Charvet

Bernardino - Ashley Riches

Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique

Conductor : Sir John Eliot Gardiner Staging : Noa Naamat Lights : Rick Fischer Costumes : Sarah Denise Cordery

Yesterday, the Opera Royal de Versailles ignagurated their 250th season with Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini, celebrating his 150th birthday. It is truly a Berlioz celebration what we saw yesterday.Maestro John Eliot Gardiner is a Berlioz expert, and he showed it to us from the first note of the ouverture, played by standing and outstanding musicians from the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. The whole performance was full of contrasts.What a way of conducting and transmitting energy to the audience. The orchestra (Orchestre révolutionnaire et Romantique) and the Monteverdi Choir are probably one of the best musical groups of the 21st century. They showed their energy during the Carnaval act 1 scene. Michael Spyres dominates very good this kind of repertoire and that gives him a big facility to sing high long and generous notes. Young soprano Sophia Burgos has a clear voice even if she hasn't a big projection, and she has great scenic skills. We'll follow her carreer, that will be undoubtly very interesting. Another highlight of the cast was Liones Lhote's Fieramosca. He might be THE Fieramosca of our time. The rest of the cast at a high level too, with a funny Maurizio Muraro as Giacomo Balducci, a Tareq Nazmi as the Pope with a big voice, mention to Adèle Charvet as Ascanio too, who was incredible in her 2nd Act Aria.
The performance was semi staged by Noana Amat, and I think it was an excellent idea. We didn't need more to understand the story and the scenic playing by the artists was a lot of fun. We had on the stage a 19th century staging, Berlioz conducted using with that same stagint in 1848. Definetly a big party for this Berlioz Celebration!

Iago Campello