BSO — 2017/10/28

This week's Boston Symphony concert is a single work, "The Damnation of Faust" by Hector Berlioz conducted by Charles Dutoit. I was at the Friday matinee and found it very enjoyable — excellent music very well performed by soloists, orchestra, and chorus. All the usual links to background information — performer bios (click on the photos), program notes, audio preview, podcast — are available at the orchestra's performance detail page, along with the following blurb:

Charles Dutoit leads the BSO and an outstanding cast in Hector Berlioz's magnificent The Damnation of Faust. Goethe's Faust resonated strongly in the Romantic era, particularly the title character's attempt to transcend human limitations via science and magic at the cost of promising his soul to Mephistopheles. The very human tragic love story, centered on Faust and Marguerite, looms large in Berlioz's setting, which was the first major work to grapple with Goethe's far-reaching text. The Damnation of Fausthas held a special place in the BSO's repertoire since Koussevitzky led the orchestra's first complete performances in 1934, and it was recorded by the BSO under both Charles Munch (twice!) and Seiji Ozawa.

Both reviews were quite favorable, giving more information about the piece than the performance, but the Globe and the Boston Musical Intelligencer both liked what they heard. I found the music always descriptive of what was happening, and I was especially moved by the final section, in which Marguerite is welcomed to heaven.

There were surtitles (which didn't seem to translate every line of the text, but at least gave the gist of it). I'm not sure how well it will work without being able to see them. Here's a link to the text, alternately in English and French, with some introductory material. The layout is not ideal, but if you sort through it, it's all there. At the least, you'll probably want to follow the synopsis given in the program notes.

As always, you can hear it on WCRB at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time, and I highly recommend it. If you can't catch it live, it will be rebroadcast at 8:00 on Monday, November 6. (Meanwhile, on October 30, the rebroadcast will be of last week's Beethoven and Grieg  incidental music.) The WCRB website has information about future BSO concert broadcasts and other programming on the station.

Enjoy!