Berlioz's semi-operas

by Daniel Albright

"Berlioz's Semi-Operas studies two works, Romeo et Juliette and La damnation de Faust, which are among the most challenging of the entire Romantic movement, not least because they assault the notion of genre: they take place in a sort of limbo between symphony and opera, and try to fulfill the highest goals of each - simultaneously. Berlioz strenuously resisted any impediments that stood in the way of complete compositional freedom. Most of his large-scale works nevertheless obey the strictures of some preexistent form, whether opera or symphony or mass or cantata; it is chiefly in these two experiments that Berlioz allowed himself full liberty to be Berlioz.". "The method of this book is unusual in that it pays equally close attention to the original literary texts (Romeo and Juliet and Faust) as well as to the musical adaptations; furthermore, it suggests many analogues in the operatic world that Berlioz knew - the world of Gluck, Mozart, Mehul, Spontini, Cherubini - in order to show