NAU NUA: BENVENUTO CELLINI

music by Hector Berlioz

libretto by Léon de Wailly, Henri Auguste Barbier

stage direction by Terry Gilliam
music conducted by Josep Pons

set design by Herbert Murauer
co-direction and movement direction by Terry Gilliam and Aaron Marsden

Gran Teatre del Liceu
Barcelona, 5 November 2015

Something completely different

® A Bofill

Berlioz and Gilliam. This opera in two acts composed by Hector Berlioz with libretto by Léon de Wailly and Auguste Barbier, is been shown only three times in the Gran Teatre del Liceu de Barcelona, and that was in 1977. Nearly forty years later it returns by the hand of American Terry Gilliam, director of such films as Brazil or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and a former member of the legendary Monty Python. Always an overflowing baroque imagination, sometimes scattered, sometimes very accurate but always stimulating, Gilliam poses in Berlioz's opera circus, fun and a colorful atmosphere.

Courtesy of Gran Teatre del Liceu

Benvenuto Cellini was composed by Hector Berlioz based on the memoirs of sculptor of the same name, whom the Vatican appoints a work for Pope Clement VII. This unleashes a love story for whoever receives the order to Cellini is the father of Teresa of whom he is in love but also promised the sculptor Fieramosca. Cellini hatches a plan to escape with Teresa but promised not only prevent but also seek to gain custom Pope.

The work at the time was a failure by its radicalism and even today not part of the standard repertoire in the opera world. It seems then fit perfectly with Gilliam, an artist completely unclassifiable. And the truth is that so it does and with a great success, as with the criticism that has come to Barcelona are superb from both London and Amsterdam, and here there has been some disappointment. The Gilliam baroque music accompanies Berlioz, do not drown, leaving room for the showcasing of the soloists in their arias.

® A Bofill

Musically, Act I Romance in which Cellini is portrayed as an artist and lover, was wonderful. The trio as he plans to escape with Teresa being spied by Fieramosca, is a delight from John Osborn, unforgettable, powerful, Kathryn Lewek and Ashley Holland, respectively. Josep Pons conducting the Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu is always a guarantee of great experience. The night gave us, as the Monty Python used to say, something completely different! Benvenuto Cellini then!