Berlioz - Benvenuto Cellini

Product Description 'A mix of futurism à la Metropolis, fantasy à la Batman and quotes from Piranesi's Carceri, juxtaposed in the form of photo montages, enhanced with … robots, a helicopter, a shark and the winged vehicle of a pop star Pope', was how the Neue Zürcher Zeitung described this astonishing Salzburg Festival production of Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini. The high-calibre cast, headed by Burkhard Fritz as the temperamental Renaissance artist and the 26-year-old Latvian soprano Maija Kovalevska as Teresa, the woman with whom he tries to elope, is conducted by Valery Gergiev who 'pulled out all the stops. He whips the Vienna Philharmonic into a delirium similar to that which possibly took hold of the composer'. (Der Standard) This is French grand opera at its fast-paced and spectacularly-staged best. Review Berlioz was one of the great innovators in the history of music. In every sense he fit the description comedian Steve Martin often gave of himself as "a wild and crazy guy." His music remains fresh, surprising and beautiful. Now at last, in the case of his 1838 opera Benvenuto Cellini,we have a stage production worthy of the music. German director Philipp Stölzl was chosen for the job even though his main qualifications were pop music videos and commercials. But Stölzl got it mostly right in this 2007 Salzburg Festival production. Stölzl sets the opera not in the sixteenth century, as it is supposed to be, but in some imagined near future with helicopters, robots and Star Wars characters. Sets and costumes are fantastic and colourful and there is rarely a dull moment. Not all of it makes sense but it is certainly imaginative and entertaining. But one big question: how come we don't get to see Cellini's bronze statue at the end? When the Met staged Benvenuto Cellini in 2003 this was one of the great moments. The singing is magnificent with not a weak link in the cast, from Heldentenor Burkhard Fritz down to innkeeper/storekeeper, Sung-Keun Park. The ferociously difficult choral parts come off splendidly even at Gergiev's breakneck tempi.The quality of the video production, headed by Andreas Morell, is state of the art. -- La Scena Musicale, Paul E. Robinson, February 2010If this DVD is anything to go by, one has some sympathy for the management of the Paris Opéra in their dealings with Berlioz over productions of Benvenuto Cellini in the 1830s.