![]() ![]() Dès la troisième acte, tombant brisé à genoux …, respirant à peine, et souffrant comme si une main de fer m'ont étreint le coeur, je me dis avec une entière conviction: ah! je suis perdu. … l'ardent soleil, aux nuits embaumier de l'Italie, assister au spectacle de cet amour prompt comme la pensée, brulant comme la lave, impérieux, irréstible, immense, et pur et beau comme la sourire des anges … c'était trop. ![]() He later recalled his reaction to his first exposure to Romeo and Juliet: (Berlioz left Smithson in 1844 after a three-year affair with soprano Marie Récia she died in 1849.)īut while his ardor for Smithson was keen, Berlioz was seized by an even deeper and more lasting love of Shakespeare. Kern Holoman reports, she never learned to speak French, refused to travel, abandoned her career, wrote scatterbrained letters, incurred huge debts, had fits of hysterics, and became dumpy, nagging and jealous. Yet, by the time Berlioz finally wrote his own version of Roméo et Juliette in 1839 his ardor for Smithson must have plummeted to an idealized memory of the enchantress and the role that had captivated him so completely – as D. He then sublimated his feelings into his first masterwork, the Symphonie Fantastique, and after years of further pursuit finally won and married her. He later called this "the supreme drama of my life." He desperately tried to attract her affections but she left Paris and returned home without having met him. He returned four nights later to see her as Juliet. ![]() His inspiration for this project was itself an extraordinary story of two of his own loves.īoth began the night of September 11, 1827, when the struggling 23-year old composer went to the Odéon Theatre in Paris to see Shakespeare's Hamlet and was smitten by Harriet Smithson, an Irish actress who played Ophelia. In this survey, we discuss each of its seven movements, the premiere and revisions in response to critical reaction, some notable recordings, Romeos by other composers, and some sources for further information.įor his third and most daring symphony, Hector Berlioz turned to the world's most famous love story. Hector Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette symphony was a compound labor of love for both an actress and Shakespeare. ![]()
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