Sometimes it's hard to understand why a work as entertaining as Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini isn't more popular. It's brilliantly orchestrated, fun, filled with good tunes and vivid, if stock, characters. But it's too-challenging-by-half for comedy, and too-light-by-half for grand opera, occupying a gray area between the two genres in which only a few works (like Wagner's Die Meistersinger and Verdi's Falstaff) have had much success. Benvenuto Cellini is loosely based on the life of one of the sixteenth century's most ...
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Sometimes it's hard to understand why a work as entertaining as Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini isn't more popular. It's brilliantly orchestrated, fun, filled with good tunes and vivid, if stock, characters. But it's too-challenging-by-half for comedy, and too-light-by-half for grand opera, occupying a gray area between the two genres in which only a few works (like Wagner's Die Meistersinger and Verdi's Falstaff) have had much success. Benvenuto Cellini is loosely based on the life of one of the sixteenth century's most notorious figures. A celebrated artisan and sculptor, a writer, and an occasional murderous thug, Cellini led the ultimate scoundrel's life, producing jewelry and works of art that were coveted by royalty one minute, and skipping town on the heels of his own bad behavior the next. The casting of his best-known statue, that of Perseus holding the head of Medusa, provides the loose framework for the plot, which combines the raucous atmosphere of Carnival, a rivalry between Cellini and the...
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![Berlioz: Benvenuto Cellini (First Recoding of the Original Paris Version) [Audio Cd] Hector Berlioz; John Nelson; Orchestre National De France; Gregory Kunde; Patrizia Ciofi; Joyce Didonato; Jean-Fran](https://www4.alibris-static.com/cover/m06914bw0qx_t.jpg)
