A Singer’s Guide to the Great Composers: Berlioz
My first experience of the music of Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) was at school in Edinburgh in the late 60s, when, every Christmas, we sang ‘Thou must leave thy Lowly Dwelling’, a sweet chorus from his oratorio ‘L’Enfance du Christ’. I’ll always remember the introduction on oboe, as Berlioz created the effect of a simple shepherd piping a tune to celebrate the miraculous birth. The English translation was very Victorian: “Thou must leave thy lowly dwelling, The humble crib, the stable bare”, but I recall giggling at the line: ”Babe, all mortal babes excelling” (this was 1969 and I was an adolescent!). Little did I know that this pleasant Christmas carol was written by one of the most astonishing creative minds of all time, an innovator who almost single-handedly catapulted music into the Romantic era.
We were lucky in Scotland at that time, that Sir Alexander Gibson was a Berlioz fanatic, and many were the superb concerts he conducted with the SNO in the Usher Hall. Sir Alec had a particular flair for Berlioz’ music, and he often programmed his works into the orchestra’s schedule. He conducted the first professional performances in Scotland of Berlioz’ great masterpiece ‘Les Troyens’ (The Trojans) with Scottish Opera in 1969 to celebrate the centenary of the composer’s death, starring Janet Baker as Dido, and those performances were my introduction to a piece that was to become very important in my career. Looking at the archives, I see that the fine English mezzo Ann Howard sang Cassandra, Ronald Dowd tackled the fiendish role of Aeneas, and the great French-Canadian, Joseph Rouleau, sang the Ghost of Hector and Narbal, the High Priest. The whole opera was sung in one very long evening, and it was seen as one of the defining operas of the fledgling company, along with Wagner’ Ring around the same time and Verdi’s ‘Otello’, with the young New Zealand soprano, Kiri Te Kanawa.
I first heard Berlioz’ wonderful ‘Symphonie Fantastique’ around the same time, naturally conducted by Sir Alec with the SNO. It is a work of unbelievable invention, written when the composer was only 27. It was unlike anything before it, or since, and was inspired by the young tyro’s infatuation for the Irish actress, Harriet Smithson, whom he eventually married. I have heard this symphony numerous times since then, and it never fails to excite. The final movement, when well-played, can be one of the most exciting in the entire symphonic repertoire, and almost inevitably results in huge cheers and bravos. One of my most recent experiences of the ‘Symphonie Fantastique’ was at the Usher Hall a few years ago with the thrilling young Venezuelan conductor, Gustavo Dudamel. The audience was propelled to its feet afterwards in a spontaneous ovation.
As I wrote in A Singer’s Life, I have been lucky enough to sing a lot in Francophone countries, and this, combined with my degree in French, has allowed me to become something of an expert in singing in French. I also think that the timbre of my voice lends itself to the French repertoire, and so Berlioz has played a big part in my career over the last 40 years. As I began to work more extensively abroad, I found myself booked to sing in that same ‘L’Enfance du Christ’ which I remembered from childhood, in the Palau de la Musica in Valencia. This unusual work is in three sections; it was composed between 1850 and 1854 and given its first performance in Paris in December 1854 with Berlioz conducting. It describes the anguish of King Herod, as he is tormented by visions of a child who will overthrow him, his consultation with a group of Jewish soothsayers, who tell him his vision is true, and his decision to order the massacre of all new-born children in Judaea. Next we see the Holy Family in the stable in Bethlehem, where angels tell them to flee the king’s edict and shepherds sing them a rustic farewell (the Christmas music from my childhood), followed by the flight of the Holy Family to escape the edict. Finally, we see their arrival in the Egyptian town of Sais, where they are given refuge by a family of Ishmaelites. There are several soloists and a chorus, with some soloists doubling. Herod and the Ishmaelite father are for bass and Joseph is a baritone, so I sang the two bass roles, which are necessarily very different from each other. Herod is a wonderful part, full of angst, horror, rage and megalomania, while the Father is gentle, warm and loving. Fortunately, there is time during the middle section of the work, to calm down from the excitement of Herod to find the tranquil quality needed for the Father.
I have sung the piece a few times since then and would love to do it again sometime.
Berlioz’ Requiem (La Grande Messe des Morts), premiered in 1837, is a colossal work for tenor solo, chorus, organ and a huge orchestra, including four antiphonal offstage brass ensembles. The enormous forces involved mean that the Requiem is rarely performed, but it is simply phenomenal. Sadly, there is no solo bass part!
I once sang in a concert version of his opera, ‘Benvenuto Cellini’, a work of great interest but rarely performed because of its complicated plot and difficult title role for tenor. There is a lovely role for the bass, Pope Clement V11, who visits Cellini’s workshop (he was a famous goldsmith and sculptor during the later Renaissance in Italy) and has beautiful music to sing. This was Berlioz’ first opera, premiered in 1838, which contains hints of a style that would gradually become more expressive as he grew older. It is based on Cellini’s own memoirs which were, to say the least, racy!
Another Berlioz work I have sung is ‘La Damnation de Faust’, a very quirky French take on Goethe’s amazing dramatic poem. There is a wonderful role for bass, Mephistopheles, the devil, disguised as a gentleman, which offers enormous scope for vocal acting. Berlioz had a hankering for the work to be staged, but realised that it was beyond the scope of any technical production in the 19th century, and indeed it was not created in a form that might be staged, with all the dramatic scene changes involved. There have been attempts in our own time to stage it, but I believe it is better to do as a concert version, allowing the audience to imagine all the extraordinary scenes and transformations, while the singers use their vocal skills to paint the picture. The performance I took part in was in Canterbury Cathedral, in the 1990s, and it was quite phenomenal to play the Devil in that magnificent old holy building. There are four soloists, an enormous chorus and a huge orchestra, but Berlioz conjures some magical quiet sections, which take the breath away. The composer had a preference for the lower woman’s voice, the mezzo-soprano, and most of his dramatic works have big parts for the mezzo. Here it is Marguerite, the chaste girl who Faust seduces under Mephisto’s evil guidance, and it is a superb role. The tenor sings Faust, another of Berlioz’ killer tenor roles, but it is fabulous if you can find a singer able to conquer the difficulties. There is one other small role for Bass, Brander, who sings a drinking song about a rat in Auerbach’s Cellar Tavern in Leipzig. The star of the piece though is Mephistopheles (well, I would say that, wouldn’t I?), as he wheedles, cajoles, woos and finally destroys Faust. In the utterly amazing final scene, he takes Faust on a ride into Hell, where demons and damned spirits welcome the learned doctor to eternal damnation in a mysterious hellish language. It is worth getting Sir Colin Davis’s wonderful recording of the Damnation. If you don’t know the work, you are in for a treat.
Speaking of Colin Davis, my first acquaintance as a professional performer with Berlioz was as the Ghost of Hector in his huge opera in two parts, ‘Les Troyens’, in a magnificent concert version at London’s Barbican Hall in the early 90s. Colin had recorded the work quite early in his career in 1969, with Josephine Veasey and Jon Vickers, and by the 1990s he was acknowledged as the greatest Berlioz conductor of the time. I was enormously lucky to coincide with his desire to conduct ‘Les Troyens’ again, with the LSO, and a magnificent cast, featuring Vladimir Bogachov, Jane Henschel and Markella Hatziano, and an array of fantastic British singers such as Gwynne Howell, Robert Lloyd and Ian Bostridge. My role, as the Ghost of Hector, was quite small but enormously important, as the ghost appears to Aeneas to warn him about the fall of Troy (of Wooden Horse fame) and the necessity for him to flee and eventually to found Rome. The ghostly appearance is cleverly constructed by Berlioz, and basically, and simply, takes the singer from B Flat down through the octave to the lower B Flat, with a mysterious orchestral accompaniment. It sounds underwhelming on paper but is a stroke of utter genius.
My costume for the ghost of Hector, designed by Karl Lagerfeld
The success of the London performance resulted in an invitation to sing the same role at La Scala, Milan, perhaps the most famous opera house in the world. Colin was to conduct, and Jane, Markella and Vladimir, and ME, repeated our roles in an old production by Luca Ronconi, with costumes by Karl Lagerfeld. My outfit was a rather fetching (one interpretation) short Greek tunic, but the main talking point was the enormous Wooden Horse, which dominated the end of the first act. Most of my family came over to see it, and, of course, I was able to get them wonderful free seats in the stalls, but some other friends came just to see the show, and complained vociferously to me later that, from the cheap seats, they couldn’t see the blooming horse! They could see me though, as it was only Aeneas and me on the stage, at the front. Vladimir had installed himself in the famous Callas spot (the position downstage right – that’ s left, as viewed from the audience – which Maria Callas always insisted produced the best sound), but I was near enough to him to get a pretty decent sound out! The whole thing was the most marvellous experience for me, just thinking of all the famous operas which had premiered in that theatre and all the great singers who had appeared on that stage.
My only regret was that, a few years later, Sir Colin played the opera again in the Barbican with the LSO, with a completely different cast, and, because by that time the LSO were issuing CDs of some of their concerts, that cast was the one who appeared on his second recording of ‘Les Troyens’, and not mine. I think, with one or two exceptions, it was inferior both to his original recording, and our earlier performance in the Barbican, but that’s life!
A few years later, I was cast in a new production of ‘Les Troyens’ at the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam, this time as King Priam, conducted by Edo De Waart. Priam is about the same length of role as the Ghost of Hector normally, but the Dutch company added in an extra scene which is rarely performed, in which Priam has a few more lines to sing. Unlike the ghost scene, Priam features in the grand ceremonial scene in the first part, so I went from an intimate duet with Aeneas to being the centrepiece of a huge choral staging which ends with the story of a vast sea monster eating one of the Trojan priests, and everyone’s reaction to this doom-laden prophetic occurrence, the false interpretation of which leads the Trojans to admit the wooden horse into the city, and the ensuing disaster of the fall of Troy.
Possibly Berlioz’ masterpiece, according to some writers, is his version of Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Described by the composer as a Dramatic Symphony, this is a work in which I have never sung, and, to my shame, had never heard until now, during research for this article. Scored for three soloists (mezzo, tenor and bass), chorus and orchestra, it was premiered in 1839 in Paris, and one of the first listeners was Richard Wagner, who noted its influence on his writing. There is a wealth of wonderful music, and a lovely role for Bass (Friar Lawrence).
If you have not encountered the works of Hector Berlioz, I encourage you to try some of the pieces I have written about here. It can be an acquired taste, but I reckon it’s worth it, for some of the most extraordinary music ever written.
