Le frisson des Nuits d’été : Gardiner au Festival Berlioz

By Tristan Labouret, 31 August 2021

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“si Berlioz avait été là, cette production shakespearo-mendelssohnienne l’aurait probablement comblé”

Reviewed at Château Louis XI, Cour, La Côte-Saint-André on 28 August 2021

Berlioz, Les Nuits d'été, Op.7

Mendelssohn, A Midsummer Night's Dream: Overture, Op.21

Mendelssohn, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Op.61 (Incidental Music)

Cyrille Dubois, Tenor

Lea Desandre, Mezzo-soprano

Lionel Lhote, Baritone

Alexander Knox, Actor

Rebecca Lee, Actor

Oscar Batterham, Actor

Monteverdi Choir

Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique

Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Conductor

A triumph against the odds: Les Troyens at the BBC Proms

Mark Valencia, 3rd September

Dinis Sousa doesn't put a foot wrong as the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and Monteverdi Choir give a performance of startling virtuosity at the end of a European tour.

*****

Prom 59: Berlioz with a bronze glow

Mark Pullinger, 2nd September

To mark the 150th anniversary of the composer's death, Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts the opera charting the escapades of the Italian goldsmith and sculptor.

****1

A mortal nothingness: Verdi's Requiem at Westminster Cathedral

Olivia Bell, 18th September

This concert was inevitably the sum of far more than its parts, and not for nothing are the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantiquem, regarded as among the best in the world

Byron's Harold the unlikely star in Gardiner's Berlioz Prom

Mark Pullinger, 5th September

Antoine Tamestit takes a peripatetic approach to Byron's brooding hero, while Joyce DiDonato dies – twice – as Cleopatra and Dido.

*****

Prom 31: An intoxicating La Damnation de Faust

Mark Valencia, 8th August

An unapologetic treat at the Proms and a composition of immediate appeal.

****1

Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette with the ORR

Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres, 30th July

Prom 20 proved an exhilarating journey, featuring Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette as one of the key works of this year’s BBC Proms' Shakespeare 400 celebrations.

****1

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Tristan Labouret

Musicologue diplômé du CNSMD de Paris, Tristan Labouret collabore avec de nombreux artistes et institutions musicales (Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo, Orchestre national d'Île-de-France, Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier, festivals de musique de chambre de Deauville, Just Classik Festival…), menant des activités de médiation à destination de tous les publics. Ex-altiste toujours passionné par les répertoires chambristes et symphoniques, il occupe depuis 2018 le poste de rédacteur en chef de la partie francophone de Bachtrack.