Work: Benvenuto Cellini

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. 

The task sounded Herculean: turning Benvenuto Cellini, that reputedly difficult, flawed work by Berlioz, into an utterly entertaining show that renders justice to its youthfully energetic music. This is what Terry Gilliam manages to pull off... and it is nothing short of miraculous.

“He’s not an opera director. He’s a very naughty boy!” Three years after his surreal Damnation of Faust, Terry Gilliam tackles more Berlioz for English National Opera in the shape of Benvenuto Cellini, striking gold again.