Barbican audience eavesdrop on LSO rehearsal

Berlioz Romeo and Juliet

Olga Borodina mezzo-soprano
Kenneth Tarver tenor
Evgeny Nikitin bass-baritone
London Symphony Chorus
London Symphony Orchestra
Valery Gergiev conductor


13 November 2013, Barbican Hall, London
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Valery Gergiev is taking his London Symphony Orchestra for another dash through a chunk of repertoire.  This time it's Berlioz for the Gergievation, with over three nights reeling off concerts featuring Harold in Italy, Romeo et Juliette and the Symphonie Fantastique respectively.

Valery Gergiev

No, wait.  It's better than that.  Try this for an early November all-Berlioz schedule:
6th: Romeo and Juliet at London's Barbican
7th: The Damnation of Faust at Barbican
8th: Symphonie Fantastique at Brno, Czech Republic
9th: Symphonie Fantastique at St Poelten, Austria
10th: Symphonie Fantastique at Essen, Germany
11th: rest day (phew!)
12th: Harold in Italy at Barbican
13th: Romeo and Juliet again at Barbican
14th: Symphonie Fantastique at Barbican
15th: rest day
16th: Symphonie Fantastique in Paris
17th: Romeo and Juliet in Paris

Does this make for good music making?  Maybe by the time they get to Paris on the evidence of this performance.  I was trying them out with the second performance of Berlioz's magnificent Romeo and Juliet at the Barbican.  As is well known, Berlioz adored Shakespeare.  His response to Romeo and Juliet was as original as it was successful.  He called it a symphony and it is the central orchestral movements that carry the main weight fo protraying the play.  Feeling it pointless to try and set chunks of dialogue to music he framed the work in a vocal prologue and finale for chorus and two soloists.

Having recently heard Beethovenian Brahms now it was the turn to hear Berlioz under the Beethoven influence.  And what great writing this is.  Successive orchestral sections on the Capulet Ball, Balcony Scene, Queen Mab, Juliet's Funeral Convoy and finally Romeo at the Capulet's Tomb.

Olga Borodina

Olga Borodina left one wanting more of her luxury voice and Kenneth Tarver handled  his Queen Mab solo with an ideal feather-light touch.  Evgeny Nikitin by contrast sounded a little out of his comfort zone but the choruses were generally excellent.

With the stage draped in microphones for the planned disc from these concerts, was Gergiev's attitude to balance more thinking of the recording than the live performance?  At the gorgeous bursting forth as the small chorus describes the Balcony Scene in the Prologue, the orchestra completely swamped the voices.  A major failing for those of us in the hall, but easily fixed at the mixing desk later. 

What a curious evening's music making this was.  Gergiev's legendary grip only revealed itself in a riveting performance of Juliet's Funeral Convoy.  But for the most part it felt tentative; part final rehearsal, part public concert, part studio recording session.  How Chailly's recent super-prepared Brahms contrasted with this work-in-progress Berlioz.