Bryan Hymel - Robert Le Diable - BLU-RAY

A grand opera that dominated the European stages for most of the 19th century, Robert le diable is a masterpiece. Director Laurent Pelly breathes new life into Meyerbeer's great spectacle and audaciously entertaining moral fable, in this colorful new staging for the Royal Opera. With the wavering hero of the title sung by Bryan Hymel, this is an experience you don't want to miss.

It was whilst on the verge of loving despair that Hector Berlioz wrote this Symphonie Fantastique, épisode de la vie d'un artiste (episode from the life of an artist) where he portrays the obsession of this impossible love and the torture it inflicts upon the young man who has almost gone mad. It was first performed in December 1830 and immediately became the emblem of the musical avant-garde, making use of an unheard of soundscape which drove the audience into a frenzy which had never before been known for an orchestral work in France. Revived here by the great Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the concert is filled with symbolic works by the composer with the spendid overture from the Corsaire, and the cantata, La Mort de Cléopâtre. And finally, two mythical extracts from the great work by Berlioz, his opera, Les Troyens.

The French program offers a stimulating blend of celebrated repertoire works as well as Inchspecial tipsInch from the Romantic era to the early 20th century. These concerts of Leonard Bernstein were unanimously hailed in the press, both for the dynamism and brio of a conductor at the peak of his artistic powers, and for the unmistakable signs of rejuvenation of the Orchestre National de France. Featuring works of Hector Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique, subtitled Episode in the Life of an Artist, Albert Roussel's Symphony No. 3 - Leonard Bernstein is, in a sense, paying homage to his friend and benefactor Serge Koussevitzky, who commissioned the work for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1930 - Ambroise Thomas´ sparkling, Rossini-like overture to Raymond and Camille Saint-Saens' Le Rouet d'Omphale it was Inch... one of the most wonderful Berlioz concerts that you can dream of...Inch (Le Monde)