Genius and Intemperance

Berlioz's 'Benvenuto Cellini',
reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

Benvenuto Cellini by Hector Berlioz is another opéra maudite like Arrigo Boito's Mefistofele ('A Portable Devil', 21 March 2016). The author worked on it with love and passion because of his memories of his life in Rome as a young scholar and the autobiography of the Renaissance sculptor who had, in his view, the features of his self portrait: a mixture of genius and intemperance. This is well expressed in the title of a Jean Paul Sartre play about Edmund Kean, the British actor who made Shakespeare well known across the Atlantic Ocean. Initially conceived as an opéra comique with spoken dialogue, then transformed into grand opéra and eventually presented as opéra lyrique, its 1838 premiere was a flop...

HECTOR BERLIOZ

ROME

ITALY

ROBERTO ABBADO

ROBERTO GABBIANI

FRANCE