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 rival sculptor Fieramosca, a romance between Cellini and the daughter of a local official, and the looming authority of the Pope into one of opera's more colorful stories. None of it is terribly original, but
Berlioz's music for the piece is some of his best. Like most operas of the period, Cellini underwent several revisions. The version recorded here is an attempt to reconstruct the score heard at the original Paris premiere. The most notable, distinguishing feature is the overture -- a longer, and arguably better, version than is normally heard on recordings. Conductor
John Nelson's reading of the score is well balanced between comedic lightness and lyric substance, attentive to orchestral detail, and deceptively clear for a score of such rhythmic subtlety and complexity. It manages to be both breezy and filling at the same time. The opening scene, in which the love-struck Teresa (our heroine), her curmudgeonly watchful father Balducci (the well-meaning heavy), and the mirthful Cellini and his serenading friends from the street below, are woven seamlessly into one musical fabric sets the ambitious tone for the entire work, and that tone rarely flags over the course of three discs.
Colin Davis' earlier studio recording is of comparable quality, but the freshness and excellent sound quality of this version make it an easy recommendation.