Word: romeos
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...trod turf of Bach, Mozart or even Beethoven that Norrington's crack London Classical Players were venturing onto, but the terra incognita of Hector Berlioz, the virtuoso French composer who in the 1830s revolutionized symphonic sound in such works as the hallucinogenic Symphonie Fantastique and the blazing choral symphony Romeo et Juliette. "Our goal is to present a view of Berlioz very different from modern received opinion," Norrington told the audience before the performance. "We're not like a symphony orchestra playing notes. We only play poetry here...
...weekend series of concerts on the south bank of the Thames was billed as the "Berlioz Experience." Californian in nomenclature but quintessentially British in structure, the intensive three-day festival of concerts and lectures featured readings of the Fantastique and Romeo on original instruments. Moreover, it was the first time in more than a century that this music has been given voice in the same distinctive timbres that Berlioz was hearing in his head when he wrote...
...after the death of Beethoven, is an opium-tinged odyssey through the composer's psyche as he pursued his mad passion for the Irish actress Harriet Smithson. Its restless opening, brilliant ballroom scene, desolate pastorale, terrifying march to the scaffold and cackling witches' sabbath bloomed anew, while the 1839 Romeo et Juliette, Shakespeare transformed into sound, burst with hot-blooded vitality...
Norrington is just as effective with the public, addressing the festival audience with the easy urbanity of a BBC talk-show host. At an open rehearsal, he gave the downbeat for the combative fugue that opens Romeo, then stopped after a few minutes to quip, "It's like riding the foot-plate of a steam - locomotive...
...often the same thing, and sexy Mae West is also good for several laughs. Director Ernst Lubitsch complained that West, who was her own screenwriter, was hogging the best lines in one of her films. Every story has two characters, he reminded her. "Look at Romeo and Juliet." To which Mae haughtily replied, "Let Shakespeare do it his way. I'll do it mine. We'll see who comes out better...