Sunday 10 May

Berlioz Romeo and Juliet

Valery Gergiev conductor
Olga Borodina mezzo-soprano
Kenneth Tarver tenor
Evgeny Nikitin bass-baritone
London Symphony Chorus
Guildhall School Chorus
Simon Halsey chorus director

^{Concert recorded in November 2013}

‘To begin, the dazzling ball at the Capulets, where amid a whirling cloud of beauties young Montague first sets eyes on ‘sweet Juliet’ whose constant love will cost her her life; then the furious battles in the streets of Verona, the ‘fiery Tybalt’ presiding like the very spirit of rage and revenge; the indescribable night scene on Juliet’s balcony, the lovers’ voices ‘like softest music to attending ears’ uttering a love as pure and radiant as the smiling moon that shines its benediction upon them; the dazzling Mercutio and his sharp-tongued, fantastical humour; the naïve old cackling nurse; the stately hermit, striving in vain to calm the storm of love and hate whose tumult has carried even to his lowly cell; and then the catastrophe, extremes of ecstasy and despair contending for mastery, passion’s sighs turned to choking death; and, at the last, the solemn oath sworn by the warring houses, too late, on the bodies of their star-crossed children, to abjure the hatred through which so much blood, so many tears, were shed.’

Hector Berlioz
^1803–69

Hector Berlioz was born in south-east France in 1803, the son of a doctor. At the age of 17 he was sent to Paris to study medicine, but had already conceived the ambition to be a musician and soon became a pupil of the composer Jean-François Le Sueur.

Within two years he had composed the Messe solennelle, successfully performed in 1825. In 1826 he entered the Paris Conservatoire, winning the Prix de Rome four years later. Gluck and Spontini were important influences on the formation of his musical style, but it was his discovery of Beethoven at the Conservatoire concerts, inaugurated in 1828, that was the decisive event in his apprenticeship, turning his art in a new direction: the dramatic concert work, incarnating a ‘poetic idea’ that is ‘everywhere present’, but subservient to musical logic.

His first large-scale orchestral work, the autobiographical Symphonie fantastique, followed in 1830. After a year in Italy he returned to Paris and began what he later called his ‘Thirty Years War against the routineers, the professors and the deaf’. The 1830s and early 1840s saw a series of major works, including Harold in Italy (1834), Benvenuto Cellini (1836), the Grande Messe des Morts (1837), the Shakespearean dramatic symphony Romeo and Juliet (1839), the Symphonie funèbre et triomphale (1840) and Les nuits d’été (c 1841). Some were well-received; but he soon discovered that he could not rely on his music to earn him a living. He became a prolific and influential critic – a heavy burden for a composer but one that he could not throw off.

In the 1840s he took his music abroad and established a reputation as one of the leading composers and conductors of the day. He was celebrated in Germany (where Liszt championed him), in Russia (where receipts from his concerts paid off the debt from the Parisian failure of The Damnation of Faust), in Vienna, Prague, Budapest and London. These years of travel produced less music. In 1849 he composed the Te Deum, which had to wait six years to be performed. But the unexpected success of L’enfance du Christ in Paris in 1854 encouraged him to embark on a project long resisted: the composition of an epic opera on The Aeneid, which would assuage a lifelong passion and pay homage to two great idols, Virgil and Shakespeare.

Although Béatrice et Bénédict (1860–62) came later, the opera The Trojans (1856–58) was the culmination of his career. It was also the cause of his final disillusionment and the reason, together with the onset of ill-health, why he wrote nothing of consequence in the remaining six years of his life. The work was cut in two, and only part performed in 1863, in a theatre too small and poorly equipped. Berlioz died in 1869.

_{Profile by David Cairns}

Valery Gergiev
^conductor

Valery Gergiev is a vivid representative of the St Petersburg conducting school. His debut at the Mariinsky (then Kirov) Theatre came in 1978 with Prokofiev's War and Peace. In 1988, Valery Gergiev was appointed Music Director of the Mariinsky Theatre, and in 1996, he became its Artistic and General Director.

With his arrival at the helm, it became a tradition to hold major festivals, marking various anniversaries of composers. The Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev has scaled new heights, assimilating not just opera and ballet scores, but also an expansive symphony music repertoire.

Under Gergiev's direction the Mariinsky Theatre has become a major theatre and concert complex. The Concert Hall was opened in 2006, followed in 2013 by the theatre's second stage (the Mariinsky-II), while since January 2016, the Mariinsky Theatre has had a branch in Vladivostok – the Primorsky Stage. 2009 saw the launch of the Mariinsky label, which to date has released more than 30 discs that have received great acclaim from critics and the public throughout the world.

Valery Gergiev successfully collaborates with the world's great opera houses and has led world renowned orchestras, such as World Orchestra for Peace (which he has directed since 1997), the Philharmonic Orchestras of Berlin, Paris, Vienna, New York and Los Angeles, the Symphony Orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, Boston and San Francisco, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam) and many other ensembles. From 1995 to 2008, Valery Gergiev was Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic (of which he remains an honorary conductor to this day), and from 2007 to 2015 of the London Symphony Orchestra. Since autumn 2015, the maestro has headed the Munich Philharmonic.

Valery Gergiev is the founder and director of prestigious international festivals including the Stars of the White Nights (since 1993) and the Moscow Easter Festival (since 2002), among many others. Since 2011, he has directed the organisational committee of the International Tchaikovsky Competition. Valery Gergiev's musical and public activities have brought him acclaimed awards such as the Hero of Labour (2013), the Order of Alexander Nevsky (2016), the Russian Federation Ministry of Defence Arts and Culture Award (2017) and prestigious State awards of Armenia, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, France and Japan.

Olga Borodina
^{mezzo-soprano}

Grammy-award winning mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina is a star of the Kirov Opera, regularly appearing with the major opera houses and orchestras around the world. Winner of the Rosa Ponselle and Barcelona Competitions, she made her highly acclaimed European debut at the Royal Opera House in 1992, sharing the stage with Plácido Domingo in Samson and Delilah – performances that launched her international solo career.

Olga Borodina has since returned to Covent Garden on many occasions, and also performs frequently at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, making her debut in Boris Godunov in 1997. She has made many concert appearances with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under James Levine at Carnegie Hall, and has performed with the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors. In recital, she has performed in venues in London (Wigmore Hall, Barbican), Milan (La Scala), Vienna (Konzerthaus), San Francisco (Davies Symphony Hall), Rome (Accademia di Santa Cecilia), Hamburg (Staatsoper), Paris (Théatre des Champs Elysées) and Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), among others. Recent highlights have included Amneris in Verdi's Aida at both the Vienna State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, and a televised gala from Avery Fisher Hall in New York.

Olga Borodina’s releases on Philips Classics include a number of operas, solo recital recordings and, recently, the double album A Portrait of Olga Borodina featuring a collection of songs and arias. Her recent Verdi Requiem recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Riccardo Muti won two Grammys in 2011.

Olga Borodina was awarded People’s Artist of Russia in 2002, and in 2007 was the recipient of the State Prize, the highest accolade in Russia.

Kenneth Tarver
^tenor

Kenneth Tarver is considered to be one of the outstanding belcanto tenors of his generation, acknowledged for his beauty of tone, virtuosic technique, extensive and even vocal range, coupled with an attractive and elegant stage presence. A specialist in Mozart and demanding virtuosic operatic repertoire, he has appeared at the most prestigious opera houses and concert halls around the world, performing both well-known and seldom-performed works with conductors such as René Jacobs, Riccardo Chailly, Pierre Boulez, and Claudio Abbado.

Kenneth Tarver has amassed an impressive repertoire of both well-known and seldom performed masterpieces with conductors such as Alberto Zedda (Rossini’s Moïse et Pharaon, L’Inganno Felice, La Gazza Ladra, La Scala di Seta, Adelaide di Borgogna) Riccardo Chailly (Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, both Bach’s St Matthew and St John Passion), Carlo Rizzi (Rossini’s Armida), Bobby McFerrin: (Handel’s Messiah) or Frans Brüggen: (Mozart’s Requiem). Other highlights include Rodion Shchedrin’s My Age, My Wild Beast at the Verbier Festival, a film of Judith Weir’s Armida for Channel 4, Orff’s Carmina Burana at the Musikverein Vienna and Mozart’s Requiem at the Tanglewood Festival conducted by James Levine.

Kenneth Tarver is a past winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and was a member of the Metropolitan Opera’s Young Artist Development Programme and the Staatsoper Stuttgart. A graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy, The Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, Kenneth holds a Masters of Music Performance from Yale University School of Music, where he received the Dean’s Award for the Most Outstanding Student in the graduating class.

Evgeny Nikitin
^{bass-baritone}

Nikitin hails from Murmansk, in the very north of Russia. His first love was to compose, sing and play drums and guitar in heavy metal bands, but his vocal gift took him in a different direction.  He was accepted at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1992 and was soon combining his studies with his first solo engagements at the famed Mariinsky Theatre under Valery Gergiev’s direction. It wasn’t long before he was invited to major theatres and festivals throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia.  

Concert performances include Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death at the Schleswig Holstein Festival and at the Berlin Philharmonic, the Coronation and Death of Boris Godunov with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome, Mahler’s Symphony No 8and Rubinstein’s The Demon with the LSO, Oedipus Rex with the Müncher Philharmoniker and Verdi’s Requiem with the National Symphony Orchestra Washington.

He sings regularly at the Mariinsky theatre and at the Stars of the White Nights Festival, performing his favourite roles: the eponymous Boris Godunov, Filippo (Verdi's Don Carlo), Holländer (Wagner's The Flying Dutchman), Amfortas (Wagner's Parsifal), Wotan (Wagner's Das Rheingold), The Wanderer (Wagner's Siegfried), and Don Giovanni (Mozart).

Simon Halsey
^{chorus director}

Simon Halsey occupies a singular position in classical music. He is the trusted advisor on choral singing to the world’s greatest conductors, orchestras and choruses, and also an inspirational teacher and ambassador for choral singing to amateurs of every age, ability and background. By making singing a central part of the world-class institutions with which he is associated, he has been instrumental in changing the level of symphonic singing across Europe.

He holds positions across the UK and Europe as Choral Director of the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus; Chorus Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Chorus; Artistic Director of Orfeó Català Choirs and Artistic Adviser of the Palau de la Música; Barcelona; Artistic Director of the Berlin Philharmonic Youth Choral Programme; Creative Director for Choral Music and Projects of WDR Rundfunkchor; Director of the BBC Proms Youth Choir; Artistic Advisor of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival Choir; Conductor Laureate of the Rundfunkchor Berlin; and Professor and Director of Choral Activities at the University of Birmingham. He is also a highly respected teacher and academic, nurturing the next generation of choral conductors on his post-graduate course in Birmingham and through masterclasses at Princeton, Yale and elsewhere.

Halsey has worked on nearly 80 recording projects, many of which have won major awards, including a Gramophone Award, Diapason d’Or, Echo Klassik, and three Grammy Awards with the Rundfunkchor Berlin. He was made Commander of the British Empire in 2015, was awarded The Queen’s Medal for Music in 2014, and received the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2011 in recognition of his outstanding contribution to choral music in Germany.