Event Type : Concert

Performing with:
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor
Isabel Leonard, soprano
Nicholas Phan, tenor
Los Angeles Master Chorale
Grant Gershon, artistic director

The Los Angeles Philharmonic writes: 

It’s hard to imagine anyone having a more powerful reaction to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet than Hector Berlioz. The composer was utterly devastated when he first witnessed a production, despite the fact that he spoke not a word of English and relied on an ineloquent, garbled French translation. “By the third act, scarcely able to breathe – it was as though an iron hand had gripped me by the heart – I knew that I was lost,” he recalled in his memoir. Inspired by how he felt, Berlioz created an innovative and risky choral symphony.

Though the work features three solo singers and a chorus, nearly two-thirds of the score is purely instrumental. Berlioz didn’t attempt to recreate the iconic narrative. Neither the words of Romeo nor Juliet are sung, ever. What he instead created is an intensely personal reaction to the play’s deeper meanings, through depictions of those characters and themes that he found most meaningful.

Performing with:
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor
Isabel Leonard, soprano
Nicholas Phan, tenor
Los Angeles Master Chorale
Grant Gershon, artistic director

The Los Angeles Philharmonic writes: 

It’s hard to imagine anyone having a more powerful reaction to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet than Hector Berlioz. The composer was utterly devastated when he first witnessed a production, despite the fact that he spoke not a word of English and relied on an ineloquent, garbled French translation. “By the third act, scarcely able to breathe – it was as though an iron hand had gripped me by the heart – I knew that I was lost,” he recalled in his memoir. Inspired by how he felt, Berlioz created an innovative and risky choral symphony.

Though the work features three solo singers and a chorus, nearly two-thirds of the score is purely instrumental. Berlioz didn’t attempt to recreate the iconic narrative. Neither the words of Romeo nor Juliet are sung, ever. What he instead created is an intensely personal reaction to the play’s deeper meanings, through depictions of those characters and themes that he found most meaningful.

Performing with:
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor
Isabel Leonard, soprano
Nicholas Phan, tenor
Los Angeles Master Chorale
Grant Gershon, artistic director

The Los Angeles Philharmonic writes: 

It’s hard to imagine anyone having a more powerful reaction to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet than Hector Berlioz. The composer was utterly devastated when he first witnessed a production, despite the fact that he spoke not a word of English and relied on an ineloquent, garbled French translation. “By the third act, scarcely able to breathe – it was as though an iron hand had gripped me by the heart – I knew that I was lost,” he recalled in his memoir. Inspired by how he felt, Berlioz created an innovative and risky choral symphony.

Though the work features three solo singers and a chorus, nearly two-thirds of the score is purely instrumental. Berlioz didn’t attempt to recreate the iconic narrative. Neither the words of Romeo nor Juliet are sung, ever. What he instead created is an intensely personal reaction to the play’s deeper meanings, through depictions of those characters and themes that he found most meaningful.

Performing with:
Erin Morley, soprano
Orchestre and Choeur Métropolitain
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor

PREPARED BY FRANÇOIS A. OUIMET & PIERRE TOURVILLE

In Brahms’s A German Requiem, the human voice takes centre stage. Yannick Nézet-Séguin will lead the OM and the Chœur Métropolitain in this piece, which the composer himself called his “human requiem.” By confronting the inevitable with serenity and wonder, Brahms celebrates life on earth and beyond.

In contrast with Latin requiems, which are replete with God’s wrath and repentance, Brahms’s work is a calming ode to the human spirit. The innovative and dramatic work’s German libretto is one of a kind, evoking feelings of hopefulness and sung by a choir and soloists in the style of an oratorio. But first on the program is Brahms’s melancholic and fiery Tragic Overture.