Berlioz, Beatrice and Benedict

Synopsis

In the 19th century, the German spa town of Baden-Baden was the place to be in the summer. Wealthy international tourists could bathe in artesian wells by day, and by night, gamble at the casino or attend performances at a splendid theater modeled on the Paris Opera.

That theater opened on today’s date in 1862 with the premiere of a new comic opera by French composer Hector Berlioz, based closely on Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing, titled Beatrice and Benedict after the witty pair of lovers in the play. The composer conducted.

“A great success … applauded from beginning to end. I was recalled to the stage I don’t know how many times,” Berlioz wrote the next day. Despite the success, he confessed, “My infernal neuralgia was so bad that I mounted the podium … without feeling the slightest emotion. This bizarre indifference meant I conducted better than usual!”

Despite making light of his increasing illness, possibly Crohn’s Disease, this opera proved to be his last work, and Berlioz had only a few more years to live. His biographer David Cairns wrote: “Listening to the score’s exuberant gaiety, only momentarily touched by sadness, one would never guess that its composer was in pain when he wrote it and impatient for death.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869): Beatrice and Benedict Overture; Boston Symphony; Charles Munch, conductor; RCA Victor Gold Seal 61400

On This Day

Births

• 1781 - Austrian composer, violinist and conductor Michael Umlauff, in Vienna. He conducted the orchestra, chorus, and soloists assembled for the premiere performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at Vienna’s Kärtnertor Theater on May 7, 1824. After the totally deaf Beethoven set the initial tempos for each movement, the performers were instructed to ignore Beethoven if he continued to beat time, and to follow Umlauf.

• 1874 - Venezuelan-born French composer, conductor and music critic Reynaldo Hahn, in Caracas

• 1875 - English light music composer Albert William Ketèlbey, in Aston

Deaths

• 1919 - Italian composer Ruggero Leoncavallo, 62, in Montecatini

• 1975 - Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich, 68, in Moscow

• 1988 - Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi, 83, in Rome

Premieres

• 1862 - Berlioz: opera Beatrice and Benedict, in Baden-Baden at the Neues Theater, with the composer conducting. The libretto (by Berlioz) is based on Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing.

• 1949 - Orff: opera Antigone, in Salzburg at the Felsenreitschile

• 1972 - London premiere of Andrew Lloyd-Webber: musical Jesus Christ Superstar

• 1978 - Dave Brubeck: oratorio Beloved Son, at the American Lutheran Women’s Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with Richard Sieber conducting

• 1979 - Hanson: ballet Nymph and Satyr in Chautauqua, Tennessee

• 1988 - Peter Maxwell Davies: Symphony No. 5, during a BBC Proms Concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall, by the Philharmonia Orchestra, with the composer conducting

Others

• 1703 - J.S. Bach appointed organist at Neuekirche, Arnstadt (see also: August 4 and 14)

• 1928 - Australian-born American composer Percy Grainger marries Swedish poet and painter Ella Viola Strom at the Hollywood Bowl in front of an audience of 22,000 concert-goers. Grainger conducted the LA Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of his To a Nordic Princess, dedicated to his bride.