Juliette Et Juliette

Of all Berlioz’s Shakespeare-inspired works, Roméo et Juliette is unquestionably his masterpiece. It is also cast in an innovative new form, a kind of ‘super-symphony’ that incorporates elements of symphony, opera and oratorio. Berlioz composed no singing roles for the central characters, but allowed others to comment or narrate, giving latitude to incarnate the lovers in a musical language of extraordinary delicacy and passion. The vivid Ball Scene and Romeo at the Capulet tomb are intensely dramatic but the heart of the work is the Love Scene, a long symphonic poem which Richard Wagner called ‘the melody of the 19th century’.

Un artiste de rue gelé devenu tueur en série échappe au FBI et s’enfuit à Paris – où il tue à nouveau, attirant les touristes dans son piège. L’agente spéciale du FBI Juliette Hart est envoyée à travers le monde pour le traquer. L’esprit brillant de Juliette et son éducation européenne font d’elle l’agent idéal pour cette affaire, mais son retour en Europe fait resurgir son sombre passé, et ce tueur est plus diabolique qu’on ne l’aurait imaginé. Juliette peut-elle l’arrêter avant qu’il ne tue à nouveau ? Ou se laissera-t-elle abattre par un tueur – et par son propre passé tourmenté ? …

”What makes Hector Berlioz such a great composer?”, asks conductor John Nelson. “In one word, originality … He broke all existing traditions of orchestration, structure, harmonic language and storytelling. Even today, his music is fresh, surprising us at every turn with inexpressible beauty.” Nelson now adds two more astonishingly original works by Berlioz – the ‘dramatic symphony’ Roméo et Juliette and the ‘lyric scene’ La Mort de Cléopâtre to his Erato discography. He continues the fruitful relationship with the Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg, his choice for the recordings of Les Troyens, La Damnation de Faust, Harold en Italie and Nuits d’été. Joyce DiDonato, his unforgettable Didon and Marguerite, returns as the suicidal Cléopâtre and she is joined in Roméo et Juliette by tenor Cyrille Dubois (who was Iopas in Les Troyens), baritone Christopher Maltman, and the choruses of the Lisbon-based Gulbenkian Foundation and Strasbourg’s Opéra du Rhin.

A brilliant dancer before becoming “famous throughout Europe for his learned and elaborate sonatas, and for the elegance of his performance on the violin”, Jean-Marie Leclair is far more than the sum of his talents. His music is woven with the multiple threads of his life, carrying within it all the facets of his technical and musical explorations, his travels, his impressions, which have moulded man as much as musician.