Event Details
Boston Symphony Orchestra Performs Berlioz's The Trojans, Parts I and II
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More Details About This Event: The Roman poet Virgil’s epic Aeneid served as the basis for Berlioz’s equally epic five-act opera Les Troyens (The Trojans), the ultimate magnum opus of a composer who wrote many large-scale works.
In these unprecedented concert performances by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, each of the opera’s two parts will be performed in separate concerts; then both parts will be performed in the space of a single Sunday (May 4), with a dinner break in between. Sung in French with English supertitles A pre-concert talk will be given by Marc Mandel, Director of Program Publications, from 1:30pm-2:15pm on May 4 at Symphony Hall. The talk will cover both Part I and Part II of Les Troyens and is free to performance ticket holders. About Boston Symphony Orchestra: Now in its 126th season, the Boston Symphony Orchestra gave its inaugural concert on October 22, 1881, and has continued to uphold the vision of its founder, the businessman, philanthropist, Civil War veteran, and amateur musician Henry Lee Higginson, for well over a century. The Boston Symphony Orchestra has performed throughout the United States, as well as in Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, South America, and China; in addition, it reaches audiences numbering in the millions through its performances on radio, television, and recordings. It plays an active role in commissioning new works from today's most important composers; its summer season at Tanglewood is regarded as one of the world's most important music festivals; it helps develop the audience of the future through BSO Youth Concerts and through a variety of outreach programs involving the entire Boston community; and, during the Tanglewood season, it sponsors the Tanglewood Music Center, one of the world's most important training grounds for young composers, conductors, instrumentalists, and vocalists. The orchestra's virtuosity is reflected in the concert and recording activities of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, one of the world's most distinguished chamber ensembles made up of a major symphony orchestra's principal players, and the activities of the Boston Pops Orchestra have established an international standard for the performance of lighter kinds of music. Overall, the mission of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is to foster and maintain an organization dedicated to the making of music consonant with the highest aspirations of musical art, creating performances and providing educational and training programs at the highest level of excellence. This is accomplished with the continued support of its audiences, governmental assistance on both the federal and local levels, and through the generosity of many foundations, businesses, and individuals. About Boston Symphony Hall: Symphony Hall in Boston, Massachusetts, is widely considered to be one of the two or three finest concert halls in the world. It is the home to the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops, and several other organizations hold performances there as well.Symphony Hall was inaugurated on October 15, 1900. The Hall was modeled on the second Gewandhaus concert hall in Leipzig, and is relatively long, narrow, and high, in a rectangular "shoebox" shape like Amsterdam's Concertgebouw and Vienna's Musikvereinssaal. It is 61 feet high, 75 feet wide, and 125 long from the lower back wall to the front of the stage. Stage walls slope inward to help focus the sound. With the exception of its wooden floors, the Hall is built of brick, steel, and plaster, with modest decoration. Side balconies are very shallow to avoid trapping or muffling sound, and the coffered ceiling and statue-filled niches along three sides help provide excellent acoustics to essentially every seat. Conductor Herbert von Karajan, in comparing it to the Musikverein, stated that "for much music, it is even better... because of the slightly lower reverberation time." Beethoven's name is enscribed over the stage. His was the only musician's name put in Symphony Hall, as he was the only composer that the original directors could fully agree upon. The hall's leather seats are still original from 1900. The hall seats 2,625 people during Symphony season, 2,371 during the Pops season, and up to 800 for dinner. |
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