Berlioz and the Parisian prudes

Synopsis

We tend to think of Paris as the most sophisticated and worldly of European capitals — a city whose residents are unlikely to be shocked by anything they see or hear.

Ah, but that’s not always the case, as poor Hector Berlioz discovered on today’s date in 1838, when his new opera Benvenuto Cellini premiered at the Paris Opéra. One line in the libretto about the cocks crowing at dawn was considered, as Berlioz put it, “belonging to a vocabulary inconsistent with our present prudishness” and provoked shocked disapproval. And that was just the start of a controversy that raged over both the morality and the music of this new opera.

Following the dismal opening night, Berlioz wrote to his father: “It’s impossible to describe all the underhanded maneuvers, intrigues, conspiracies, disputes, battles, and insults my work has given rise to … The French have a positive mania for arguing about music without having the first idea — or even any feeling — about it!”

From the fiasco of the opera’s premiere, however, Berlioz did retrieve some measure of success. His famous contemporaries Paganini and Liszt both admired the work — and said so — and one flashy orchestral interlude from Benvenuto Cellini did prove a lasting success when Berlioz recast it as a concert work: his Roman Carnival Overture.

Music Played in Today's Program

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869): Benvenuto Cellini and Roman Carnival Overtures; Staatskapelle Dresden; Sir Colin Davis, conductor; BMG/RCA 68790

On This Day

Births

• 1714 - Italian opera composer Niccolo Jommelli, in Aversa (near Naples). He was known as “the Italian Gluck.”

• 1866 - Swedish violinist and composer Tor Aulin, in Stockholm

• 1875 - Lithuanian composer Mikolajus Ciurlionis, in Varena (Gregorian date: Sept. 22). His birthday is incorrectly listed as Oct. 4 in many reference works.

Deaths

• 1680 - Italian composer Marco Uccellini, 77, in Folimpopoli

Premieres

• 1838 - Berlioz: opera, Benvenuto Cellini, at the Paris Opera;

• 1950 - Karl Amadeus Hartmann: Adagio (Symphony No. 2), by the Southwest German Radio Orchestra, Hans Rosbaud conducting

• 1955 - Cowell: Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 10 for oboe and strings, in the Sunken Gardens of the Spanish Court House in Santa Barbara, California, by oboist Bert Gassman and the strings of the Third Annual Pacific Coast Music Festival orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting.

• 1971 - Ginastera: opera Beatrix Cenci at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

• 1989 - Peter Maxwell Davies: Symphony No. 4, at a BBC Proms Concert in London’s Royal Albert Hall, by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by the composer

• 1998 - Joan Tower: Wild Purple, for solo viola, at Lincoln Center in New York, by Paul Neubauer