Author, Lecturer, Broadcaster & Cultural Arts Expert;
President of Art Collage JANG/J Music/J Art/J Books & Media.
Author of over 40 books published on Amazon, including The Crimson Horror series and The Great and Immortal Painters’ Stories series.
Dedicated to sharing insights into art, culture, literature, and creative expression through writing, lectures, media, and content creation.
Born:
December 11, 1803; La Côte-Saint-André, France
Died:
March 8, 1869; Paris, France
Nationality:
France
Occupation:
Composer, Conductor
Hector Berliozwas a French
Romantic composer who was born on December 11, 1803 and died on March 8, 1869.
His works include orchestral works such as the Symphonie fantastique and Harold
in Italy, choral works including the Requiem and L'Enfance du Christ, his three
operas, Benvenuto Cellini, Les Troyens and Béatrice et Bénédict, and works of
hybrid genres such as the "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette and
the "dramatic legend" La Damnation de Faust.
Berlioz (1845)
Born as the eldest son of a
doctor's family, Berlioz had to follow his father to major in medicine, and
went to a medical college in Paris before defying his family by choosing music
as a profession.
He refused to follow traditional rules and formulas for music,
resulting in conflict with conservative musical establishment of Paris.
However, he also briefly moderated his own style sufficiently to win the Prix
de Rome, France's premier music prize in 1830.
Berlioz, Gustave Courbet (1850)
The opinion for Berlioz was
divided over the years between those who consider him as an original genius and
those who think his music as lacking in form and coherence.
At the age of 24, Berlioz fell in
love with Harriet Smithson, a famous Irish Shakespearean actress and married
her after seven years of courtship. Harriet inspired Berlioz's first major
success, the Symphonie fantastique, in which an idealized depiction of her
occurs throughout.
Harriet Smithson
Berlioz completed three operas, the
first of which, Benvenuto Cellini, ended in complete failure. The second opera,
the huge epic Les Troyens (The Trojans), was so large in scale that it had
never been entirely staged during his lifetime. His last opera, Béatrice et
Bénédict, based on Shakespeare's comedy “Much Adoe About Nothing” was
successful at its premiere, but was not included in the regular operatic
repertoire.
Poster for the premiere of Benvenuto Cellini (September 1838)
Berlioz, who had little success in France as a composer, increasingly
turned to conducting, gained an international reputation. He was highly
regarded as a composer and a conductor in Germany, England and Russia.
Musée Hector-Berlioz
He wrote
musical journalism throughout much of his career to supplement his earnings.
Some of them have been preserved in the form of books, including his
"Treatise on Instrumentation (1844)," which influenced the 19th and
20th centuries.
Today's
lecture is five operas featuring “Myth/Bible”, which were introduced in “The 37th
ACJ Music Academy” on March 5, 2016.
1.
Orfeo ed Euridice (Gluck)
It is a three-act opera composed by Christoph
Willibald Gluck, and set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi, which is one
of the most important works in opera history.
Orfeo is a poet and musician of Thrace.
Born between Calliope, one of Musai, and human, Orfeo himself believes that Apollo
is his father. When he sings with lyre, the wild beasts and even rocks were
moved by his songs. Married to the nymph Euridice, but when she is bitten by a
snake and dies, Orfeo goes to the Underworld to get his wife back and moves the
hearts of the gods and spirits by his music. However, when he walks out of the
Underworld, he breaks the ban on not looking back at her until he sees the
light on the ground, and eventually loses Euridice. After crying for a week on
the border of the Styx, Orfeo never again brought the women close.
2. Les
Troyens (Berlioz)
It is a French grand opera in five acts by
Hector Berlioz. The libretto was written by Berlioz himself from Virgil's epic
poem, the Aeneid.
Trojan princess Cassandra is punished for
rejecting Apollon's love and fooling him. The punishment is that she received
the power of prophecy from Apollon, but no one believes her prophecy, because she
broke the promise that "If you give me the power of prophecy, I will
accept your love."
In Act 1, Cassandra feels ominous at the horse left by
the Greeks and opposes the horse to be brought into the temple of Troy, but no
one believes in Cassandra's prophecy and the horse enters the temple of Troy.
In Act 2, the Greeks hiding in the horse occupy Troy, and Aeneas escapes to Carthage
with his servants as the ghost of Hector tells. To avoid being humiliated by
the Greeks, Cassandra stabs herself, and all other Trojan women follow.
In Act 3, Aeneas is hospitalized by Carthage's
queen Dido and he stays there. When the Numidian king invades Carthage, Aeneas
leads the army and defeats the invading forces.
In Act 4, Dido, who loves Aeneas,
wants to marry him and hand over the throne to Aeneas. Aeneas tries to stay in Carthage,
but God Hermes appears and commands him to go to Italy and build a new country.
In Act 5, the gods are getting angry about the fact that Aeneas is still not
leaving Carthage, and realizing that he cannot disobey fate, Aeneas tries to
leave Carthage without telling Dido. When he tries to lead his servants and lift
the anchors, angry Dido appears to condemn Aeneas, but before the morning comes
Aeneas leaves Carthage. After all hope is lost, Dido builds an altar, climbs on
it, and dies for herself.
3. Götterdämmerung
(Wagner)
It is the last music drama of four music
dramas by Richard Wagner, “Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung)”,
following Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold), Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), and Siegfried.
Siegfried saves Brünnhilde, Daughter of
Wotan in Part 3, who was trapped in the fire wall in Part 2. In Part 4, Götterdämmerung,
the two swear love by giving and receiving rings and horses as gifts. However,
the ring Siegfried received from Brünnhilde was originally made by human’s stealing
gold from the fairies of the Rhine, and it was both blessed and cursed. The
owner of the ring is destined to “dominate the world, but to leave love.” Siegfried
doesn’t know the history of the ring, but King Gunther, his servant Hagen, and
his sister, who know the truth, devise their own schemes to get the ring. Knowing
nothing and drinking alcohol they give, Siegfried suffers from amnesia, forgets
about his vow with Brünnhilde and marries King Gunther’s sister.
Following their plans, Brünnhilde, who
became the wife of Gunther, is full of revenge and informs Hagen of Siegfried's
vital spot, and Hagen kills him. Then the rest of the people fight over the
ring, and Hagen also kills King Gunther. Finally, discovering that everything
was Hagen's conspiracy, Brünnhilde throws the ring into the Rhine, then mounts
her horse Grane, and rides into the flames. The flames that burned the castle on
the ground spread to the Valhalla, the palace of the gods, and the gods are
destroyed with humans.
4. Samson
et Dalila (Saint-Saëns)
It is a grand opera in three acts by
Camille Saint-Saëns based on the Biblical tale of Samson and Delilah to a
French libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire.
The main character, Samson, in the story of
Gaza in Palestine in 1150 B.C., is generally known for his immense power to
tear lions with his bare hands, but in the Old Testament, he is recorded as a judge
of Israel who excelled not only in power but also in wisdom.
He struck down the Philistines who ruled
Israel at that time and even killed thousands of people at once by swinging
donkey jaws as weapons. This situation led the Philistines to treat Samson as
an enemy and try to kill him, but he was so strong that such plans to
assassinate him were failed.
Therefore, in the end, the method Philistines
used was using beautiful women. It seems to be true that the Philistine women were
more beautiful than the Israeli woman, and Samson often fell in love with the Philistine
women, and Dalila, who lived in the valley of Sorek, was one of them. Dalila,
who has been promised a high compensation from the high class of Philistines,
actively seduces Samson and finally finds out the secret of his power that it
is from his hair. Then, she cuts his hair while he sleeps and hands him over to
the Philistines.
Samson, whose hair was cut and who became blind,
is turning the millstone while bound. In front of the stage, the Hebrew
prisoners chorus and resent Samson for selling them for the woman. Samson
repents of sin against God, asks for mercy, and soon the Philistines draw him out.
After the dance is over, the blind Samson comes out drawn by the hand of a
child. The priests, Dalila, and the Philistines mock him. The Philistines
praise Dagon and offer sacrifices. The high priest commands Samson to kneel
before the god Dagon and offer a cup. Samson asks the child to lead him toward marble
pillars. He took Samson between the two pillars. Samson cries 'Lord, give me
one moment back my former power! Let me crush them here so I can pay back’ and
pushes the pillars with his hands. Finally, the giant pillars slowly move, and
everyone is buried under the temple.
5. Elektra
(Richard Strauss)
It
is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo
von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama, Elektra.
The
stage of the opera begins with the Mycenaean palace after Agamemnon was killed.
The younger brother Orestes is in exile in a distant land, and Clytemnestra, Aegisthus,
Elektra and her sister Chrysothemis remain in the palace. Elektra is living her
life to pay back her father's revenge. Her sister, Chrysothemis, who is
weak-hearted, also feels the pain of her heart like Elektra, but she doesn’t
understand her vengeful elder sister. Chrysothemis' only wish is to marry, have
children, and build a normal family. Clytemnestra, who encounters Elektra in
the yard, requests her daughter a prescription for her painful dreams, but Elektra
responds with a cold answer that she has no choice but to offer just sacrifices
and it makes her mother almost faint.
Elektra,
who dreams of a day of revenge with Orestes, asks Chrysothemis to join in the revenge
when she heard that Orestes has died in an accident, but Chrysothemis is
frightened and runs away. Elektra decides to get revenge alone by the ax, that
killed Agamemnon, buried under the ground. Then, Orestes, who was rumored to be
dead, appears in front of Elektra and reveals who he is. Orestes first kills
his mother, Clytemnestra, and Elektra lures Aegisthus and hand him over to Orestes.
After the vengeance is complete, Elektra dances with ecstasy and dies.
You
can listen to all the arias selected in this course from following YouTube
link.
1. Che faro senza Euridice?, Orfeo ed
Euridice (Gluck)
2. Non, je ne verrai pas, Les Troyens
(Berlioz)
3. Grane, mein Ross, sei mir gegruβt, Götterdämmerung
(Wagner)
4. Mon Coeur s’ouvre a ta voix, Samson et
Dalila (Saint-Saëns)
