A Night at the (Imaginary) Opera: The Visual Dimension in Hector Berlioz's Lelio, Romeo et Juliette and La Damnation de Faust

<p>In keeping with the spirit of Romanticism, Hector Berlioz has always been something of a rogue figure. Works like Lelio, Romeo et Juliette and La damnation de Faust, which Daniel Albright refers to as 'semi-operas', occupy an uncomfortable place within the concert hall. The intersections between song, symphony, opera and the spoken word that form these works immediately pose questions concerning musical unity, narrative interpretation, issues of genre, and performance style. While the musical and literary aspects of the three compositions have been the subject of scholarly attention, this study turns its gaze onto the various visual dimensions that are present within Lelio, Romeo et Juliette and La damnation de Faust. By emphasising the presence of spectacle in Berlioz's compositions, questions soon arise concerning the implications of these visual elements for performance. Berlioz's relatively early work, Lelio, illustrates the extent to which the composer is already concerned with how the visual suppression of performing bodies can create and change narrative meanings. Romeo et Juliette raises the curtains that hide Lelio's musical forces. Rather than simply distilling Shakespeare's drama into music, Berlioz relies instead on a visual memory of Romeo and Juliet to replace the absence of physical characters within his 'symphonie dramatique', thus creating an aural rendition of a past theatrical event. Through an exploration of the spectacle within Lelio and Romeo et Juliette, we see how Berlioz has constructed a visually detailed imaginary theatre that resides within the score. An understanding of this imaginary theatre is integral in the subsequent analysis of Berlioz's controversial and wonderfully diabolical La damnation de Faust. This work is performed as often in the opera house as it is in the concert hall. However, an in-depth analysis of the libretto and score reveals curious and occasionally contradictory visual implications. The impact that these contradictions have on the visual dimension in the performance of La damnation de Faust will be explored through a reading of two ground-breaking productions: Raoul Gunsbourg's La damnation de Faust from 1893 - the first production to treat Berlioz's score as an opera; and Robert Lepage's mixed-media production of La damnation. The work of these two directors serves to highlight, perhaps inadvertently, the problematic effects of Berlioz's imaginary theatre on the necessarily more concrete realisations of La damnation when confined within the opera house. However, the cinematic approach of Lepage suggests another avenue of performance that has the potential to reveal new dimensions of Berlioz's unique dramatic-symphonic works. Ultimately, it may be that the supreme technicolour nature of Berlioz's music always functions to transport us beyond our own mundane experiences and forever challenges us to seek something beyond the limits of the possible, however much those limits might change.</p>

A Night at the (Imaginary) Opera: The Visual Dimension in Hector Berlioz's Lelio, Romeo et Juliette and La Damnation de Faust

<p>In keeping with the spirit of Romanticism, Hector Berlioz has always been something of a rogue figure. Works like Lelio, Romeo et Juliette and La damnation de Faust, which Daniel Albright refers to as 'semi-operas', occupy an uncomfortable place within the concert hall. The intersections between song, symphony, opera and the spoken word that form these works immediately pose questions concerning musical unity, narrative interpretation, issues of genre, and performance style. While the musical and literary aspects of the three compositions have been the subject of scholarly attention, this study turns its gaze onto the various visual dimensions that are present within Lelio, Romeo et Juliette and La damnation de Faust. By emphasising the presence of spectacle in Berlioz's compositions, questions soon arise concerning the implications of these visual elements for performance. Berlioz's relatively early work, Lelio, illustrates the extent to which the composer is already concerned with how the visual suppression of performing bodies can create and change narrative meanings. Romeo et Juliette raises the curtains that hide Lelio's musical forces. Rather than simply distilling Shakespeare's drama into music, Berlioz relies instead on a visual memory of Romeo and Juliet to replace the absence of physical characters within his 'symphonie dramatique', thus creating an aural rendition of a past theatrical event. Through an exploration of the spectacle within Lelio and Romeo et Juliette, we see how Berlioz has constructed a visually detailed imaginary theatre that resides within the score. An understanding of this imaginary theatre is integral in the subsequent analysis of Berlioz's controversial and wonderfully diabolical La damnation de Faust. This work is performed as often in the opera house as it is in the concert hall. However, an in-depth analysis of the libretto and score reveals curious and occasionally contradictory visual implications. The impact that these contradictions have on the visual dimension in the performance of La damnation de Faust will be explored through a reading of two ground-breaking productions: Raoul Gunsbourg's La damnation de Faust from 1893 - the first production to treat Berlioz's score as an opera; and Robert Lepage's mixed-media production of La damnation. The work of these two directors serves to highlight, perhaps inadvertently, the problematic effects of Berlioz's imaginary theatre on the necessarily more concrete realisations of La damnation when confined within the opera house. However, the cinematic approach of Lepage suggests another avenue of performance that has the potential to reveal new dimensions of Berlioz's unique dramatic-symphonic works. Ultimately, it may be that the supreme technicolour nature of Berlioz's music always functions to transport us beyond our own mundane experiences and forever challenges us to seek something beyond the limits of the possible, however much those limits might change.</p>

Carvalho, Gounod, and the Waltz

Between 1850 and 1867, Carvalho created coloratura roles in sixteen operas, including five by Gounod: Marguerite in Faust, Baucis in Philémon et Baucis, Sylvie in La Colombe, the title role in Mireille, and Juliette in Roméo et Juliette. This chapter focuses on Carvalho’s Gounod creations, examining a little-known aria that Gounod wrote for Carvalho, “Ah! Valse légère,” based on the waltz chorus, “Ainsi que la brise légère,” from Faust. The aria’s popularity spurred a vogue for the vertiginous waltz ariette and established Carvalho as a truly modern soprano who wielded authority because of her prodigious vocal virtuosity. Carvalho associated herself with this aria-type, catalyzed it as a new genre, and propagated its popularity and significance. Her use of coloratura resonates with the increasing opulence and ornament in Second Empire France and Carvalho’s contributions as a créatrice encourage us to reconsider this period of opera history.

A breach of silence: affective soundscapes in Sasha Waltz’s Roméo et Juliette

This article analyses Roméo’s silent solo dance in German choreographer Sasha Waltz’s staging of Hector Berlioz’s dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette for the Paris Opera Ballet. The musicless scene, which imagines Roméo’s reaction to the news of Juliette’s ‘death’, exposes the dancer’s physicality through various acoustic means, creating a soundscape that makes the character’s despair accessible to the audience as affective intensities. The solo thus not only brings together competing stances towards emotionalism from classical and non-classical theatre dance, but also builds upon the philosophical interrogation of artistic expression both in Shakespeare’s play and in its musical adaptation by Berlioz.

D’une interdisciplinarité-processus à une interdisciplinarité-oeuvre : La très excellente et lamentable tragédie de Roméo et Juliette de Catherine Gaudet et Jérémie Niel

En 2016, le metteur en scène Jérémie Niel et la chorégraphe Catherine Gaudet présentaient leur pièce La très excellente et lamentable tragédie de Roméo et Juliette à l’Usine C (Montréal). Retraçant les propos des deux artistes tenus lors du colloque Alternatives interdisciplinaires : de l’identité des arts vivants (GRIAV, 2016), nous analysons dans cet article comment cette rencontre interdisciplinaire a pu se construire dans un dialogisme relationnel face à la question du disciplinaire, dans une interdisciplinarité-processus tout d’abord basée sur les savoir-faire de chacun en studio et dans une interdisciplinarité-oeuvre ensuite exprimée dans une production hétéromorphe soucieuse de sortir de toute catégorisation possible.