BERLIOZ Roméo Et Juliette

SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS BERLIOZ Roméo et Juliette

Sasha Cooke Nicholas Phan Luca Pisaroni SFS Chorus

© San Francisco Symphony, 2018 SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS music director and conductor Sasha Cooke mezzo-soprano San Francisco Symphony Chorus Nicholas Phan tenor Ragnar Bohlin chorus director Luca Pisaroni bass-baritone

HECTOR BERLIOZ (1803-1869) Roméo et Juliette Opus 17 (1839/1846)

Part 1 I. Introduction and Prologue 19:44 Part 2 II. Romeo Alone—Festivity at the Capulets’ 13:20 III. The Capulets’ Garden—Love Scene 18:23 IV. Scherzo: Queen Mab 08:40 Part 3 I. Second Prologue—Juliet’s Funeral Cortege 10:31 II. Romeo in the Tomb of the Capulets 07:47 III. Finale: Brawl between the Capulets and the Montagues— 01:24 IV. —Friar Laurence’s Recitative and Aria— 11:54 V. —Oath of Reconciliation 05:13

Producer: Jack Vad Engineering Support: Greg Moore, Gus Pollek, Dann Thompson, Denise Woodward Post-Production: Mark Willsher I Mastering: Gus Skinas Cover Photo: Onfokus / Getty Images I Booklet Photos: Cory Weaver, Kristen Loken, Stefan Cohen

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2 BERLIOZ © San Francisco Symphony, 2018 BERLIOZ Roméo et Juliette Dramatic Symphony, Opus 17

THE BACKSTORY That Hector Berlioz (1803- on his taste. Depictions of Italian history, art, were interfused, each intensifying the other,” 1869) was a genius there can be no doubt, and landscape would surface often in his music wrote the composer in his Memoirs. (Despite the though genius does not always ensure a calm during ensuing decades, as witness such works fact that he spoke no English and she no French, passage through life. His father was a physician as the “dramatic symphony” Roméo et Juliette they would finally marry in 1833. It would be an in a town not far from Grenoble; and since the (1839/1846) heard here, as well as his symphony unhappy union, and after they separated in the father assumed that his son would follow in the Harold in Italy and the operas Benvenuto Cellini early 1840s, Smithson declined into alcoholism. same profession, the son’s musical inclinations (inspired by the autobiography of the sixteenth- She died in 1854.) were largely ignored. He was sent to Paris to century Italian sculptor, goldsmith, and One of Berlioz’s admirers was the attend medical school, strongly disliked the musician), Les Troyens (1856-58, renowned violinist Niccolò Paganini. Impressed experience, and took advantage of being in the after Virgil’s Aeneid, chronicling events leading by Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, he approached big city by enrolling in private musical studies to the founding of Rome), and Béatrice et the composer in 1834 to commission a concerto and, beginning in 1826, the composition Bénédict (1860-62, after Shakespeare’s Much Ado with which he could show off his newly acquired curriculum at the Paris Conservatory. The seal About Nothing, which is set in Italy). Stradivarius viola. The resulting work, Harold of approval for all Conservatory composition Berlioz idolized the works of Shakespeare, en Italie, was not quite what Paganini had in students was the Prix de Rome, and in 1830, which the Romantics viewed as reflecting their mind, and he declined to perform it; but when in his fourth consecutive attempt, Berlioz was own esthetics of highly personalized expression. he finally heard the piece, in 1838, he was so finally honored with that prize. Apart from Berlioz first encounteredRomeo and Juliet in the moved that he presented Berlioz a gift of 20,000 providing a measure of recognition for his skills theater in an eighteenth-century adaptation by francs. Suddenly Berlioz enjoyed a degree of and a welcome source of income, the award David Garrick. That was in September 1827, financial security, and he spent most of the year included a residency in Italy, a nation whose at the Paris Odéon. The troupe performed in 1839 reinterpreting Shakespeare’s Romeo and ancient cultural lineage was considered to wield English, but attendees could purchase a French Juliet as a symphony, “something splendid on an indispensable influence over the formation of translation by Pierre Letourneur at the door, a a grand and original plan, full of passion and the creative intellect. version Berlioz had already studied. Playing the imagination” (as he put it). Original it surely The fifteen months he spent there provided part of Juliet Capulet (on nights when she was was. Berlioz’s dramatic symphony incorporated both inspiration and disappointment, and not appearing as Ophelia or Desdemona) was the distinct genres that did not normally intermarry Berlioz ended up returning to France before his Irish actress Harriet Smithson, with whom the any more than Capulets and Montagues did: residency concluded. But what he liked about twenty-three-year-old Berlioz was immediately oratorio, melodrama, operatic movements, Italy would become a permanent passion; both and irredeemably smitten. “My heart and whole song, and ballet, in addition to what might be the remnants of antiquity and the vivacity of being were possessed by a fierce, desperate considered “standard” symphonic writing. In modern Italian life left an indelible imprint passion in which love of the artist and of the art the end this unprecedented project unrolled

3 BERLIOZ © San Francisco Symphony, 2018 over eight movements (organized into three [The] last scene of the reconciliation parts), stretching across an hour and fourty- between the two families is the only one that five minutes. These movements depict or refer falls into the domain of opera or oratorio. It to selected scenes from Shakespeare’s tale of has never been performed on any stage since fair Verona—or, better put, they express the Shakespeare’s time, but it is too beautiful, composer’s representation of the emotions too musical, and it concludes a work of this involved. nature too well for the composer to dream of treating it differently. . . . THE MUSIC It would have been more obvious If, in the famous garden and cemetery for Berlioz to act on his Romeo and Juliet scenes, the dialogue of the two lovers, Juliet’s fascination by turning the play into an opera, asides, and Romeo’s passionate outbursts are as Charles Gounod would in 1867. But his not sung, if the duets of love and despair opera Benvenuto Cellini had recently nosedived are given to the orchestra, the reasons are at its premiere, and it was doubtless the wrong numerous and easy to comprehend. First, moment to bank on another stage work. There and this alone would be sufficient, it is a is nonetheless a good deal that is operatic in symphony and not an opera. Second, since this score, particularly in the sections that duets of this nature have been handled vocally spotlight the solo singers. Berlioz roughed out a thousand times by the greatest masters, it the libretto by writing a prose text, adapting was wise as well as unusual to attempt another Shakespeare’s action considerably, after which means of expression. It is also because the very his friend Émile Deschamps crafted the lyrics sublimity of this love made its depiction so in French verse. And yet, Berlioz insisted that dangerous for the musician that he had to give this was a symphony, even if it far surpassed the his imagination a latitude that the positive assumptions that term might imply to music sense of the sung words would not have lovers. “There can be no mistaking the genre of given him, resorting instead to instrumental this work,” he wrote in a foreword to the score: language, which is richer, more varied, less precise, and by its very indefiniteness Even though voices are often used, it is incomparably more powerful in such a case. neither a concert opera nor a cantata, but a choral symphony. —James M. Keller If there is singing, almost from the James M. Keller is the longtime Program Annotator beginning, it is to prepare the listener’s mind of the San Francisco Symphony and the New York for the dramatic scenes whose feelings and Philharmonic. © San Francisco Symphony, 2018 passions are to be expressed by the orchestra. . . .

4 BERLIOZ © San Francisco Symphony, 2018 The SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY gave its first concerts in December 1911. Its music directors have included Henry Hadley, Alfred Hertz, Basil Cameron, lssay Dobrowen, Pierre Monteux, Enrique Jordá, Josef Krips, Seiji Ozawa, Edo de Waart, Herbert Blomstedt, and, since 1995, Michael Tilson Thomas. The SFS has won such recording awards as France’s Grand Prix du Disque, Britain’s Gramophone Award, Germany’s ECHO Klassik, and the United States’s Grammy. Releases on the Symphony’s own label, SFS Media, include a cycle of Mahler symphonies that has received seven Grammys, several volumes devoted to the works of Beethoven, and John Adams’s Harmonielehre and Short Ride in a Fast Machine, which won a 2013 Grammy for Best Orchestral Performance, and the 2013 ECHO Klassik. Other recent recordings on SFS Media include Grammy-nominated albums of Debussy’s Images pour orchestre and Mason Bates’s orchestral works. For RCA Red Seal, Michael Tilson Thomas and the SFS have recorded scenes from Prokofiev’sRomeo and Juliet, a collection of Stravinsky ballets, and Charles Ives: An American Journey, among others. Some of the most important conductors of the past and recent years have been guests on the SFS podium, among them Bruno Walter, Leopold Stokowski, Leonard Bernstein, and Sir Georg Solti, and the list of composers who have led the Orchestra includes Stravinsky, Ravel, Copland, and John Adams. The SFS Youth Orchestra, founded in 1980, has become known around the world, as has the SFS Chorus, heard on recordings and on the soundtracks of such films asAmadeus and Godfather III. For more than two decades, the SFS Adventures in Music program has brought music to every child in grades 1 through 5 in San Francisco’s public schools. SFS radio broadcasts, the first in the US to feature symphonic music when they began in 1926, today carry the Orchestra’s concerts across the country. In a multimedia program designed to make classical music accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds, the SFS launched Keeping Score on PBS-TV, DVD, radio, and at the website keepingscore.org. San Francisco Symphony recordings are available online and at the Symphony Store in Davies Symphony Hall. San Francisco Symphony recordings are available at sfsymphony.org/sfsmedia.

5 BERLIOZ © San Francisco Symphony, 2018 MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS first conducted the San Francisco Symphony in 1974 and has been Music Director since 1995. A Los Angeles native, he studied with John Crown and Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California, becoming Music Director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra at nineteen and working with Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen, and Copland at the famed Monday Evening Concerts. In 1969, Mr. Tilson Thomas won the Koussevitzky Prize and was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony. Ten days later he came to international recognition, replacing Music Director William Steinberg in mid-concert at Lincoln Center. He went on to become the BSO’s Principal Guest Conductor. He has also served as Director of the Ojai Festival, Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, and a Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. With the London Symphony Orchestra he has served as Principal Conductor and Principal Guest Conductor; he is currently Conductor Laureate. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy. Michael Tilson Thomas’s recorded repertory reflects interests arising from work as conductor, composer, and pianist. His television credits include the New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts, and in 2004 he and the San Francisco Symphony launched Keeping Score on PBS-TV. Among his honors are Columbia University’s Ditson Award for services to American music and Musical America’s Musician and Conductor of the Year award. He is a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of France, was selected as Gramophone 2005 Artist of the Year, inducted to the Gramophone Hall of Fame in 2015, named one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2010 was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. Most recently, he was elected to the Academy of Arts and Letters as an American Honorary Member.

6 BERLIOZ © San Francisco Symphony, 2018 American mezzo-soprano SASHA COOKE NICHOLAS PHAN regularly performs is a graduate of Rice University and the with the world’s leading orchestras and Juilliard School of Music. A former member opera companies in repertory ranging from of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Monteverdi to Nico Muhly and beyond. He is Young Artist Development Program, she also an avid recitalist and a passionate advocate for attended the Music Academy of the West, the art song and vocal chamber music; in 2010, Aspen Music Festival, the Ravinia Festival’s he co-founded Collaborative Arts Institute of Steans Institute, the Wolf Trap Foundation, Chicago (CAIC), an organization devoted to the Marlboro Music Festival, and the young promoting this underserved artform. He made artist programs of Central City Opera and his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2009. Seattle Opera. Ms. Cooke made her San Francisco Symphony debut in 2009 Mr. Phan has appeared with many of the top orchestras in North America and became a Shenson Young Artist in 2010. She has appeared with the San and Europe, including the Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Francisco Symphony several times in recent seasons, including performances Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 and Das Lied von der Erde, and staged Philadelphia Orchestra, BBC Symphony, English Chamber Orchestra, productions of Mahler’s Das klagende Lied and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis. Strasbourg Philharmonic, and Royal Philharmonic. His many opera credits In previous seasons, Ms. Cooke performed the title role of Nico Muhly’s include appearances with the Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Marnie in its world premiere at English National Opera, appeared in the world Glyndebourne Opera, Maggio Musicale in Florence, Deutsche Oper am premiere of Mason Bates’s The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs at Santa Fe Opera, Rhein, and Frankfurt Opera. In both recitals and chamber concerts, he has and returned to a role she created, Hannah after, in Laura Kaminsky’s opera been presented by Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Metropolitan As One both at Hawaii Opera Theatre and Chautauqua Opera Company. Museum of Art, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Notable concert appearances include the role of Goffredo in a concert version Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Atlanta’s Spivey Hall, Boston’s Celebrity of Handel’s Rinaldo alongside the English Concert; Beethoven’s Missa solemnis Series, and the Library of Congress in Washington DC. with the London Symphony Orchestra and Michael Tilson Thomas; Duruflé’s Mr. Phan’s solo albums include Illuminations, released on Avie Records in Requiem with the Dallas Symphony; Prokofiev’sIvan the Terrible with the 2018; Gods and Monsters, nominated for the 2017 Grammy Award for Best Chicago Symphony; Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1, Jeremiah with the Royal Classical Vocal Solo Album; A Painted Tale; Still Falls the Rain; and Winter Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Netherlands Radio Words. His growing discography also includes a Grammy-nominated Philharmonic; a staged version of Verdi’s Requiem with Houston Grand recording of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with Pierre Boulez and the Chicago Opera; and Christopher Theofanidis’s Creation/Creator with the Atlanta Symphony, the opera L’Olimpiade with the Venice Baroque Orchestra, Symphony. Scarlatti’s La gloria di primavera and Handel’s Joseph and His Brethren with On DVD, Ms. Cooke can be seen in a new production of Hansel Philharmonia Baroque, an album of Bach’s secular cantatas with Masaaki and Gretel at the Metropolitan Opera and the Grammy Award-winning Suzuki and Bach Collegium Japan, Bach’s Saint John Passion (in which he production of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic under conductor Alan Gilbert. Her sings both the Evangelist and the tenor arias) with Apollo’s Fire, and the world recordings can be found on the Hyperion, Naxos, Bridge Records, Yarlung, premiere recordings of two orchestral song cycles: The Old Burying Ground by GPR Records, and Sono Luminus labels. Evan Chambers and Elliott Carter’s A Sunbeam’s Architecture. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Mr. Phan also studied at the Manhattan School of Music and the Aspen Music Festival and School, and is an alumnus of the Houston Grand Opera Studio.

7 BERLIOZ © San Francisco Symphony, 2018 Italian bass-baritone LUCA PISARONI first came to international attention with his debut at age twenty-six with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival, led by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2015. In recent seasons he has appeared as Mahomet II in Rossini’s Le siège de Corinthe in his first performances at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro; made role debuts as Golaud in Debussy’s Pélleas et Mélisande at Opéra de Paris, Mustafà in Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri at the Vienna State Opera, and Don Pizarro in Beethoven’s Fidelio at La Scala; and returned to the Metropolitan Opera stage for performances as Count Almaviva in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. Notable concert appearances include Bach’s B minor Mass with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Rossini’s Stabat Mater at Vienna’s Musikverein, Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle at the Vienna Konzerthaus and with the Luxembourg Philharmonie, Beethoven’s Mass in C major with the Bavarian Radio Symphony, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with the London Symphony Orchestra and Michael Tilson Thomas, Handel’s Rinaldo on tour with the English Concert, and a program of orchestrated Schubert songs with the Filarmonica della Scala. In addition to his extensive opera and concert appearances, Mr. Pisaroni has performed recitals at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Teatro de la Zarzuela, Ravinia Festival, the Concertgebouw, Edinburgh Festival, Vienna’s Musikverein, the Vancouver Recital Society, and the Dortmund Konzerthaus, among other international venues. Mr. Pisaroni’s discography includes Don Giovanni and Rinaldo from the Glyndebourne Festival; Le nozze di Figaro with the Opéra National de Paris; Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, and Le nozze di Figaro from the Salzburg Festival; and Don Giovanni with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Additional releases include Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, and the title role in Le nozze di Figaro with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

8 BERLIOZ © San Francisco Symphony, 2018 The SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY CHORUS was established in 1973 at the request of Seiji Ozawa, then the Symphony’s Music Director; the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, numbering thirty-two professional and more than 120 volunteer members, performs more than twenty-six concerts each season. Louis Magor served as the Chorus’s director during its first decade. In 1982 Margaret Hillis assumed the ensemble’s leadership, and the following year Vance George was named Chorus Director, serving through 2005-06. Ragnar Bohlin assumed the position of Chorus Director in March 2007. The Chorus can be heard on many acclaimed recordings, including Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 2, 3, and 8 (with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting), choral works of Brahms, Mahler’s Das klagende Lied, Stravinsky’s Perséphone, selections from Berlioz’s Lélio, and John Adams’s Harmonium. The ensemble has received Grammy awards for Best Performance of a Choral Work (for Orff’s Carmina burana, Brahms’s German Requiem, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8) and Best Classical Album (for a collection of Stravinsky’s music including Perséphone, The Firebird, and Le Sacre du printemps; and for Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 and Symphony No. 8).

RAGNAR BOHLIN began his tenure as Chorus Director of the San Francisco Symphony in 2007. Mr. Bohlin served as choirmaster of Stockholm’s Maria Magdalena Church and holds degrees from the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm. He studied conducting with Eric Ericson and Jorma Panula, piano with Peter Feuchtwanger in London, singing with Nicolai Gedda, and through a Sweden-America Foundation scholarship he visited choruses throughout the US. With Stockholm’s KFUM Chamber Choir, the Maria Magdalena Motet Choir, and the Maria Vocal Ensemble, Mr. Bohlin has won numerous prizes in international competitions. Currently teaching at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he has also taught at the Royal Academy in Stockholm and been a visiting professor at Indiana University and Miami University. With the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, he has conducted J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and B minor Mass, Handel’s Messiah, Fauré’s Requiem, and Orff’s Carmina burana. Mr. Bohlin’s guest conducting engagements have included appearances with the São Paulo Symphony in Brazil, Malmö Symphony in Sweden, Stavanger Symphony in Norway, and the Edmonton Symphony in Canada. In fall 2016 he conducted the Ericson Chamber Choir in Mozart’s C minor Mass and in 2018 he led the BBC Singers and Swedish Radio Choir. Mr. Bohlin is the founding Artistic Director of the professional chamber choir Cappella SF; the group has released three recordings on the Delos label. In 2013, he was awarded the Cultural Achievement Award from the Swedish-America Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco. In 2018, he was awarded Michael Korn Founders Award from Chorus America.

9 BERLIOZ © San Francisco Symphony, 2018 SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY FIRST VIOLINS SECOND VIOLINS CELLOS OBOES TRUMPETS MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS Alexander Barantschik Dan Carlson Michael Grebanier Eugene Izotov Mark Inouye Concertmaster Principal Principal Principal Principal music director and conductor Nadya Tichman Helen Kim Peter Wyrick Christopher Gaudi Douglas C. Carlsen Associate Concertmaster Associate Principal Associate Principal Acting Associate Principal Acting Associate Principal Mark Volkert Paul Brancato Amos Yang Pamela Smith Guy Piddington Assistant Concertmaster Assitant Principal Assistant Principal Russ deLuna Jeff Biancalana Jeremy Constant Dan Nobuhiko Smiley Margaret Tait English Horn Assistant Concertmaster Raushan Akhmedyarova Barbara Andres TROMBONES Mariko Smiley David Chernyavsky Barbara Bogatin CLARINETS Timothy Higgins Melissa Kleinbart John Chisholm Jill Rachuy Brindel Carey Bell Principal Yun Chu Cathryn Down Sébastien Gingras Principal Nicholas Platoff Sharon Grebanier Darlene Gray David Goldblatt Luis Baez Associate Principal Naomi Kazama Hull Amy Hiraga Carolyn McIntosh Associate Principal Paul Welcomer In Sun Jang Kum Mo Kim Anne Pinsker David Neuman John Engelkes Yukiko Kurakata Kelly Leon-Pearce Jerome Simas Bass Trombones Suzanne Leon Eliot Lev BASSES Bass Clarinet Leor Maltinski Chunming Mo Scott Pingel TUBA Diane Nicholeris Polina Sedukh Principal BASSOONS Jeffrey Anderson Sarn Oliver Chen Zhao Lee Philip Stephen Paulson Principal Florin Parvulescu Acting Associate Principal Principal Victor Romasevich VIOLAS Stephen Tramontozzi Steven Dibner HARP Catherine Van Hoesen Jonathan Vinocour Assistant Principal Associate Principal Douglas Rioth Principal S. Mark Wright Rob Weir Principal Yun Jie Liu Charles Chandler Steven Braunstein Associate Principal Lee Ann Crocker Contrabassoon TIMPANI Katie Kadarauch Chris Gilbert Edward Stephan Assistant Principal Brian Marcus HORNS Principal John Schoening William Ritchen Robert Ward Gina Cooper Principal PERCUSSION Nancy Ellis FLUTES Nicole Cash Jacob Nissly David Gaudry Tim Day Associate Principal Principal David Kim Principal Bruce Roberts Raymond Froehlich Christina King Robin McKee Assistant Principal Tom Hemphill Wayne Roden Associate Principal Jonathan Ring James Lee Wyatt III Nanci Severance Linda Lukas Jessica Valeri Adam Smyla Catherine Payne Jeff Garza KEYBOARDS Matthew Young Piccolo Robin Sutherland

MUSIC LIBRARY Margo Kieser Principal Librarian John Campbell Assistant Librarian

10 BERLIOZ © San Francisco Symphony, 2018 11 BERLIOZ © San Francisco Symphony, 2018 BERLIOZ Roméo et Juliette symphonie dramatique, opus 17

LE CONTEXTE Il ne fait aucun doute son goût. Des évocations de l’histoire, de l’art et être furent envahis par une passion cruelle, qu’Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) était un génie, des paysages d’Italie émergeront souvent dans acharnée, où se confondaient, en se renforçant bien que le génie ne garantisse pas toujours une sa musique au cours des décennies suivantes, l’un par l’autre, l’amour pour la grande artiste traversée calme de l’existence. Son père était témoin des œuvres comme la « symphonie et l’amour du grand art », écrit le compositeur médecin dans un bourg non loin de Grenoble ; dramatique » Roméo et Juliette (1839/1846), dans ses Mémoires. (Alors qu’il ne parlait pas et comme le père supposait que son fils entendue ici, ainsi que sa symphonie Harold en l’anglais, pas plus qu’elle, le français, ils se s’engagerait à sa suite dans la même profession, Italie et les opéras Benvenuto Cellini (inspiré par marièrent finalement en 1833. Ce fut une les inclinations musicales d’Hector furent l’autobiographie du sculpteur, orfèvre et musicien union malheureuse, et, après leur séparation au dans une large mesure ignorées. On l’envoya italien du XVIe siècle), Les Troyens (1856-1858, début des années 1840, Smithson sombra dans à Paris étudier à la faculté de médecine ; mais d’après l’Énéide de Virgile, chroniquant les l’alcoolisme. Elle mourut en 1854.) l’expérience lui déplut fortement, et il profita de événements conduisant à la fondation de Rome), L’un des admirateurs de Berlioz était sa présence dans la capitale pour faire des études et Béatrice et Bénédict (1860-1862, d’après le célèbre violoniste Niccolò Paganini. musicales en privé et, à partir de 1826, suivre les Beaucoup de bruit pour rien de Shakespeare, qui Impressionné par sa Symphonie fantastique, cours de composition du Conservatoire. Le sceau se passe en Italie). il s’adressa au compositeur en 1834 pour lui d’approbation pour tout étudiant en composition Berlioz idolâtrait les œuvres de commander un concerto qui mette en valeur du Conservatoire était le Prix de Rome, et, en Shakespeare, dont les romantiques considéraient l’alto Stradivarius qu’il venait d’acquérir. L’œuvre 1830, lors de sa quatrième tentative consécutive, qu’elles reflétaient leur propre esthétique qui en résulta, Harold en Italie, n’était pas tout à Berlioz remporta enfin ce prix. Outre qu’il était d’expression hautement personnalisée. Berlioz fait ce que Paganini avait en tête, et il renonça à une reconnaissance de son talent et une source découvrit Roméo et Juliette au théâtre dans la jouer ; mais quand il l’entendit finalement en bienvenue de revenus, le prix lui permettait de une adaptation du XVIIIe siècle due à David 1838, il fut si touché qu’il fit cadeau de 20 000 séjourner en Italie, nation dont l’ancien héritage Garrick. C’était en 1827, au théâtre de l’Odéon francs à Berlioz. Soudain Berlioz bénéficia d’une culturel était estimé exercer une indispensable à Paris. La troupe jouait en anglais, mais les certaine sécurité financière, et il passa l’essentiel influence sur la formation de la pensée créatrice. spectateurs pouvaient acheter à l’entrée une de l’année 1839 à réinterpréter Roméo et Juliette Les quinze mois qu’il y passa furent source traduction française de Pierre Letourneur de Shakespeare pour en faire une symphonie, à la fois d’inspiration et de déception, et Berlioz – version que Berlioz avait déjà étudiée. Le « une maîtresse œuvre, sur un plan neuf et finit par retourner en France avant le terme prévu rôle de Juliette Capulet était joué par l’actrice vaste, une œuvre grandiose, passionnée, pleine de son séjour. Mais ce qu’il aima en Italie allait irlandaise Harriet Smithson (les soirs où elle aussi de fantaisie », comme il le dit lui-même. devenir une passion permanente ; les vestiges n’incarnait pas Ophélie ou Desdémone), dont L’œuvre était incontestablement originale. La de l’antiquité et la vivacité de la vie italienne Berlioz, à vingt-trois ans, s’éprit immédiatement symphonie dramatique de Berlioz incorporait moderne laissèrent une empreinte indélébile sur et irrémédiablement. « Mon cœur et tout mon des genres distincts qui normalement ne se

12 BERLIOZ © San Francisco Symphony, 2018 mariaient pas plus entre eux que les Capulets « Bien que les voix y soient souvent fantaisie une latitude que le sens positif des et les Montaigus : l’oratorio, le mélodrame, les employées, ce n’est ni un opéra de concert, paroles chantées ne lui eût pas laissée, et mouvements d’opéra, la mélodie et le ballet, ni une cantate, mais une symphonie avec recourir à la langue instrumentale, langue outre ce qu’on pourrait considérer comme chœurs. plus riche, plus variée, moins arrêtée, et, par l’écriture symphonique conventionnelle. Pour Si le chant y figure presque dès le début, son vague même, incomparablement plus finir, ce projet sans précédent se déploya en c’est afin de préparer l’esprit de l’auditeur puissante en pareil cas. » huit mouvements (organisés en trois parties), aux scènes dramatiques dont les sentiments s’étendant sur une heure trente-cinq minutes. et les passions doivent être exprimées par —James M. Keller Ces mouvements dépeignent des scènes choisies l’orchestre. [...] Traduction : Dennis Collins de l’histoire de la belle Vérone de Shakespeare [La] dernière scène de la réconciliation ou y renvoient – ou plutôt expriment la des deux familles est seule du domaine de représentation que s’en faisait le compositeur des l’opéra ou de l’oratorio. Elle n’a jamais été, émotions qui s’y jouent. depuis le temps de Shakespeare, représentée sur aucun théâtre ; mais elle est trop belle, LA MUSIQUE Il aurait été plus évident pour trop musicale, et elle couronne trop bien un Berlioz de réagir à sa fascination pour Roméo et ouvrage de la nature de celui-ci, pour que le Juliette en transformant la pièce en opéra, comme compositeur pût songer à la traiter autrement. le fit Charles Gounod en 1867. Mais son opéra Si, dans les scènes célèbres du jardin et Benvenuto Cellini avait récemment été un fiasco du cimetière, le dialogue des deux amants, à sa création, et c’était sans doute le mauvais mo- les apartés de Juliette et les élans passionnés ment pour miser sur une autre œuvre scénique. Il de Roméo ne sont pas chantés, si enfin les y a néanmoins beaucoup d’éléments opératiques duos d’amour et du désespoir sont confiés à dans cette partition, en particulier dans les sec- l’orchestre, les raisons en sont nombreuses et tions qui mettent en avant les chanteurs solistes. faciles à saisir. C’est d’abord, et ce motif seul Berlioz esquissa le livret en rédigeant un texte suffirait à la justification de l’auteur, parce en prose, adaptant considérablement l’action qu’il s’agit d’une symphonie et non d’un de Shakespeare, ensuite de quoi son ami Émile opéra. Ensuite, les duos de cette nature ayant Deschamps le versifia. Et pourtant Berlioz sou- été traités mille fois vocalement et par les plus lignait qu’il s’agissait d’une symphonie, même si grands maîtres, il était prudent autant que elle surpassait de beaucoup les implications de ce curieux de tenter un autre mode d’expression. terme pour les mélomanes. « On ne se mépren- C’est aussi parce que la sublimité de cet dra pas sans doute sur le genre de cet ouvrage », amour en rendait la peinture si dangereuse écrit-il dans la préface à la partition : pour le musicien, qu’il a dû donner à sa

13 BERLIOZ © San Francisco Symphony, 2018 14 BERLIOZ © San Francisco Symphony, 2018 BERLIOZ Roméo et Juliette Symphonie dramatique, Opus 17

DIE VORGESCHICHTE Zweifelsohne war die Lebendigkeit des modernen Lebens prägten Smithson, in die sich der 23-jährige Berlioz Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) ein Genie, allerdings Berlioz’ künstlerische Persönlichkeit nachhaltig. sofort unwiederbringlich verliebte. „Mein Herz garantiert Genie nicht immer einen ruhigen Weg Darstellungen der italienischen Geschichte, und mein gesamtes Wesen waren besessen von durch das Leben. Sein Vater war ein Mediziner Kunst und Natur erschienen häufig in seiner einer heftigen, verzweifelten Leidenschaft, in in einer Stadt nicht weit von Grenoble; und da Musik der folgenden Dekaden, wie Werke wie der sich die Liebe zur Künstlerin und zur Kunst der Vater davon ausging, dass sein Sohn ihm die in dieser Einspielung zu hörende „Symphonie vermischten und gegenseitig intensivierten“, in diesen Beruf folgen würde, wurden dessen dramatique“ Roméo et Juliette (1839/1846) schrieb der Komponist in seinen Memoiren. musikalische Neigungen weitgehend ignoriert. oder seine Symphonie Harold in Italien ebenso Ungeachtet der Tatsache, dass er kein Englisch Er wurde nach Paris geschickt, um Medizin belegen wie die Opern Benvenuto Cellini und sie kein Französisch sprach, heirateten sie zu studieren, was er zutiefst ablehnte, und (inspiriert von der Autobiographie des schließlich 1833. Es wurde eine unglückliche nutzte seinen Aufenthalt dort, um privaten italienischen Bildhauers, Goldschmiedes und Ehe. Nach ihrer Trennung in den frühen 1840er Musikunterricht zu nehmen und ab 1826 Musikers aus dem 16. Jahrhundert), Les Troyens Jahren verfiel Smithson dem Alkohol. Sie starb Komposition am Pariser Konservatorium (1856-58, nach Vergils Aeneis, die von den 1854. zu studieren. Das Gütesiegel für alle Ereignissen im Vorfeld der Gründung Roms Einer von Berlioz’ Bewunderern war Kompositionsstudenten des Konservatoriums handelt) sowie Béatrice et Bénédict (1860-62, der Geiger Niccolò Paganini. Beeindruckt war der Prix de Rome, mit dem Berlioz 1830 nach Shakespeares in Italien angesiedelter von Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique, bat er im vierten Anlauf ausgezeichnet wurde. Neben Komödie Viel Lärm um Nichts). den Komponisten 1834, ihm ein Konzert zu der Anerkennung seiner Fähigkeiten und einem Berlioz verehrte das Werk Shakespeares, schreiben, mit dem er seine neu erworbene willkommenen Einkommen beinhaltete die in dem die Romantiker ihre Ästhetik des sehr Stradivari-Bratsche präsentieren konnte. Das Auszeichnung eine Residenz in Italien, einem persönlichen Ausdrucks reflektiert sahen. daraus folgende Werk, Harold en Italie, entsprach Land, dessen kulturgeschichtliches Erbe als Berlioz begegnete Romeo und Julia erstmals jedoch überhaupt nicht dem, was sich Paganini unverzichtbarer Bestandteil zur Prägung eines in einer Adaption des 18. Jahrhunderts von vorgestellt hatte, so dass er es ablehnte das Stück kreativen Geistes betrachtet wurde. David Garrick im September 1827 im Pariser zu spielen. Als er das Werk dann 1838 endlich Die fünfzehn Monate, die er dort Theâtre Odéon. Die Schauspieltruppe spielte doch einmal hörte, war Paganini so davon verbrachte, boten sowohl Inspiration als auch auf Englisch, doch dem Publikum wurde eine beeindruckt, dass er Berlioz 20.000 Francs Enttäuschung, so dass Berlioz letztlich bereits französische Übersetzung von Pierre Letourneur schenkte. Dadurch hatte Berlioz plötzlich eine vor Abschluss der Residenz nach Frankreich zur Verfügung gestellt, die Berlioz bereits kannte. gewisse finanzielle Sicherheit, so dass er 1839 zurückkehrte. Was ihm jedoch an Italien gefallen Den Part von Juliet Capulet (wenn sie nicht die meiste Zeit damit verbrachte, Shakespeares hatte, wurde zu einer dauerhaften Passion: gerade als Ophelia oder Desdemona zu sehen Romeo und Julia als Symphonie neu zu deuten, Sowohl die historische Seite Italiens als auch war) spielte die irische Schauspielerin Harriet „etwas Großartiges, Eindrucksvolles, voll von

15 BERLIOZ © San Francisco Symphony, 2018 Leidenschaft und Fantasie“, wie er es ausdrückte. was Musikliebhaber gemeinhin mit dem Begriff war es ebenso klug wie ungewöhnlich, Eindrucksvoll wurde die Symphonie durchaus. verbanden. „Zweifellos wird man sich über die eine andere Art des Ausdrucks zu wagen. Berlioz’ dramatische Symphonie verband Gattung des Werkes nicht täuschen können“, Außerdem macht die Größe dieser Liebe ihre unterschiedliche Genres, die normalerweise nicht schrieb er im Vorwort zur Partitur: Darstellung für den Musiker so schwierig, zusammenfanden, so wenig wie die Capulets und dass er seiner Fantasie einen Spielraum geben Montagues: Oratorium, Melodram, opernhafte „Obwohl hier oft Singstimmen verwendet musste, den die positive Bedeutung der Sätze, Lied und Ballett sowie das, was man als werden, so handelt es sich weder um eine gesungenen Wörter ihm nicht gewährt hätte, „normale“ symphonische Musik bezeichnen veritable Oper noch um eine Kantate, und stattdessen auf die instrumentale Sprache könnte. Letztlich dehnte sich dieses beispiellose sondern um eine Symphonie mit Chor. zurückgreifen, eine Sprache, die reichhaltiger, Werk über acht in drei Abschnitte gegliederte Wenn es fast von Beginn an Gesang vielfältiger, weniger festgelegt und durch Sätze von insgesamt einer Stunde und 35 gibt, dient dieser dazu, den Zuhörer auf die ihre Unbestimmtheit in einem solchen Fall Minuten Länge. Die einzelnen Sätze beziehen dramatischen Szenen vorzubereiten, in denen unvergleichlich viel wirkungsvoller ist.“ sich auf ausgewählte Szenen aus Shakespeares Gefühle und Leidenschaften vom Orchester Tragödie oder geben sie wieder – oder, ausgedrückt werden. […] —James M. Keller besser gesagt, sie drücken die Vorstellung des [Die] letzte Szene der Versöhnung Übersetzung: Charlotte Schneider Komponisten der unterschiedlichen Emotionen zwischen den beiden Familien ist die einzige, aus. die in den Bereich Oper oder Oratorium fällt. Sie war seit Shakespeares Zeit auf keiner DIE MUSIK Es wäre für Berlioz sehr viel Bühne zu sehen, doch ist zu wunderbar, zu naheliegender gewesen, seine Faszination für musikalisch und beschließt ein Werk dieser Romeo und Julia in eine Oper fließen zu lassen, Art zu perfekt, als dass ein Komponist auch wie Charles Gounod es 1867 tun würde. Doch nur daran denken könnte, anders damit seine Oper Benvenuto Cellini war kurz zuvor umzugehen. […] bei der Premiere durchgefallen, so dass es Wenn in den berühmten Szenen im zweifelsohne der falsche Moment für ein weiteres Garten und auf dem Friedhof die Dialoge der Bühnenwerk gewesen wäre. Trotzdem gibt es in beiden Liebenden, Julias Vertraulichkeiten der Partitur durchaus viele opernhafte Passagen, und Romeos leidenschaftliche Ausbrüche, insbesondere, wenn die Solosänger hervortreten. nicht gesungen werden, wenn die Duette der Berlioz entwarf das Libretto, indem er einen Liebe und der Verzweiflung dem Orchester Prosatext schrieb und darin Shakespeares anvertraut werden, sind die Gründe dafür Handlung deutlich anpasste. Daraus fertigte vielfältig, aber leicht nachzuvollziehen. sein Freund Émile Deschamps die Texte in Erstens, und dies allein würde ausreichen, ist französischen Versen. Und dennoch beharrte es eine Symphonie und keine Oper. Zweitens, Berlioz darauf, dass es sich um eine Symphonie da Duette dieser Art bereits tausendfach von handele, selbst wenn es bei weitem das übertraf, den größten Meistern geschaffen wurden,

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821936-0074-2 Total Playing Time: 01:44:31

All works recorded live at Davies Symphony Hall—a venue of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, City and County of San Francisco (June 28-July 1, 2017).

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