Benvenuto Cellini

The absence of the work in the operatic repertoire is certainly due in part to its musical excesses: the work is so complex, richly detailed and prolifically imaginative that Berlioz’s contemporaries considered it unplayable and unsingable. This is resoundingly proven false in the 2007 Salzburg Festival production of director Philipp Stölzl, conductor Valery Gergiev and a high-caliber cast accompanied by the Vienna Philharmonic and its chorus. Stölzl, above all, has poured his experience as director

of music videos (for Madonna, Mick Jagger and others), commercials and films into this project, termed ‘science fiction for Grand Opera’ (Süddeutsche Zeitung), ‘breathtaking’ (Der Standard), and ‘spectacularly successful’ (F.A.Z.).