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Benvenuto Cellini

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Benvenuto Cellini

Benvenuto Cellini

Benvenuto Cellini is an opera semiseria in two acts with music by Hector Berlioz and libretto by Léon de Wailly and Henri Auguste Barbier. It was the first of Berlioz's operas, premiered at the Académie Royale de Musique (Salle Le Peletier) on 10 September 1838. The story is inspired by the memoirs of the Florentine sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, although the elements of the plot are largely fictional. The opera is technically very challenging and rarely performed. However, the overture to the opera sometimes features in symphony orchestra programs, as does the concert overture Le carnaval romain which Berlioz composed from material in the opera.

Composition history
Berlioz wrote in his memoirs that in 1834 (when he was thirty years old)

I had been greatly struck by certain episodes in the life of Benvenuto Cellini. I had the misfortune to believe they would make an interesting and dramatic subject for an opera, and I asked Léon de Wailly and Auguste Barbier...to write a libretto around them

The only plot element drawn directly from Cellini's memoirs concerns the casting of his statue of Perseus (which was in fact not cast in Rome but in Florence for Duke Cosimo I de Medici, where it is still displayed in the Loggia dei Lanzi). All the personae other than Cellini (with the exception of Pope Clement VII who in the opera is made the commissioner of the statue), and all the other episodes in the opera, are invented.

The original libretto (now lost), which seems to have been in the format of an opéra comique, was rejected by the Paris Opéra-Comique company. The story was then reworked into an opéra semiseria format, without spoken dialogue, and offered to the Paris Opéra, for which it was accepted in 1835 by the new Opéra director, Henri Duponchel. With actual composition starting in 1836, the opera was first performed at the Opéra on 10 September 1838, conducted by François Habeneck, and with Gilbert Duprez in the title role. At its premiere, the audience hissed most of the music after the first few numbers.

In 1851, Franz Liszt offered to revive the opera in a new production (and version) in Weimar, and suggested changes to the score to Berlioz. This version was performed in Weimar in 1852, where the title role was sung by Karl Beck, the same tenor who had created Wagner's Lohengrin in 1850, also under Liszt, and whose vocal powers were continuing to exhibit the same decline as was apparent two years earlier.

It was performed in London in 1853. However, the London reception was poor. The final performances of the opera in Berlioz's lifetime were in Weimar in 1856, this time without Karl Beck, who had now retired from singing.

Editions
In 1856, the vocal score of the Weimar edition was published in Germany. A French publication of the Weimar version vocal score appeared in 1863 from Choudens. Thomasin La May has examined the Weimar edition of the opera. In 1996, a critical edition of the opera, edited by Hugh Macdonald, was published by Bärenreiter Verlag, as part of the New Berlioz Edition. The critical edition takes into account all of the available editions:

the original version as Berlioz composed it, before changes demanded by the censors;
the version premiered in Paris, with the changes after evaluation by the censors;
the Weimar edition, after the changes suggested by Liszt.

Performance history
The original production at the Paris Opéra had costumes designed by Paul Lormier and sets by René-Humanité Philastre and Charles-Antoine Cambon.

Occasional performances took place after Berlioz's death: in Hanover in 1879, Vienna in 1911, and as part of the inaugural season at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées for six performances from 31 March 1913 conducted by Felix Weingartner. Following Les Troyens in 1935, the Glasgow Grand Opera Society mounted the opera alongside a production of Béatrice et Bénédict in 1936, conducted by Erik Chisholm.

The Carl Rosa Opera Company, a British touring company, brought it into its repertoire in 1956, giving two performances to packed houses at London's Sadler's Wells Theatre in 1957. The title role was sung by tenor Charles Craig, then at the start of a notable international career. The Royal Opera House in London staged the work on December 15, 1966, followed by its Italian premiere in Naples in 1967.

The first United States production was by the Opera Company of Boston in 1975, under the direction of Sarah Caldwell and with Jon Vickers in the title role. The first performance of the work at the Metropolitan Opera took place on 4 December 2003, with James Levine conducting, Andrei Șerban stage directing, and Marcello Giordani singing the title role.

In 2007 Benvenuto Cellini was staged at Salzburg Festival conducted by Valery Gergiev. A new production directed by Terry Gilliam, with the libretto in an English translation by Charles Hart, was premiered by the English National Opera on 5 June 2014.

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