Program Notes PDF - Chicago Symphony Orchestra

PROGRAM
ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIFTH SEASON
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director
Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant
Global Sponsor of the CSO
Thursday, April 7, 2016, at 8:00
Friday, April 8, 2016, at 8:00
Saturday, April 9, 2016, at 8:00
Riccardo Muti Conductor
Ekaterina Gubanova Mezzo-soprano
Paul Groves Tenor
Dmitry Belosselskiy Bass
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Duain Wolfe Director
Berlioz
Romeo and Juliet, Op. 17
Part 1
1. Introduction: Combats—Tumult—Intervention of the Prince—Prologue—Strophes—
Scherzetto
Part 2
2. Romeo alone—Sadness—Distant sound of dancing and music—Festivities at the Capulets
3. Serene night—The Capulets’ garden, silent and deserted—The young Capulets, leaving the
festivity, pass by singing recollections of the ball—Love scene
4. Queen Mab, the Dream Fairy (Scherzo)
INTERMISSION
Part 3
5. Juliet’s funeral cortège
6. Romeo at the tomb of the Capulets: Invocation—Juliet’s awakening. Delirious joy, despair,
final agony and death of the two lovers
7. Finale: The crowd rushes to the cemetery—Brawling between the Capulets and Montagues—
Recitative and Aria of Friar Laurence—Oath of reconciliation
The appearance of the Chicago Symphony Chorus is made possible by a generous gift from
Jim and Kay Mabie.
Saturday’s concert is endowed in part by the League of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association.
Additional support for Saturday’s concert performance is generously provided by the Orchestra, Chorus,
and Staff of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
COMMENTS by Phillip Huscher
Hector Berlioz
Born December 11, 1803, Côte-Saint-André, France.
Died March 8, 1869, Paris, France.
Romeo and Juliet, Op. 17
Even Richard Wagner,
the most astonishing
visionary of the nineteenth century, confessed
that hearing Berlioz’s
Romeo and Juliet for the
first time offered “the
revelation of a new world
of music.” Wagner, just
twenty-six and still a
struggling unknown, had moved to Paris only
weeks before the first performances of Berlioz’s
new Shakespearean symphony in 1839. Although
he hadn’t yet begun any of the works for which
he is known today, he was already fiercely
ambitious and competitive, and he was clearly
dumbfounded by Berlioz’s latest work. “I was all
ears for things I had until then had no conception of,” he later recalled of that night, “and
which I now had to try to explain to myself.”
COMPOSED
January 24–September 8, 1839
FIRST PERFORMANCE
November 24, 1839; Paris, France.
FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES
(SELECTIONS)
January 1 & 2, 1892, Auditorium
Theatre. Theodore Thomas conducting
August 7, 1945, Ravinia Festival. Pierre
Monteux conducting
FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES
(COMPLETE)
October 15 and 16, 1959, Orchestra
Hall. Florence Kopleff, Charles
Bressler, and Kenneth Smith as
soloists; Chicago Symphony Chorus
(Margaret Hillis, director); Fritz
Reiner conducting
July 22, 1972, Ravinia Festival. Mignon
Dunn, George Shirley, and Justino
Díaz as soloists; Chicago Symphony
Chorus (Margaret Hillis, director); Seiji
Ozawa conducting
2
Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet struck Paris like a
thunderbolt in 1839 and it’s still a work of singular originality today. Of all Berlioz’s major works,
including his runaway hit, the earlier Symphonie
fantastique, it’s the one that remains outside the
standard repertory—it’s a work without precedent on one hand, and without direct descendants on the other, since it inspired no sequels,
spin-offs, or imitations. But, as Wagner’s own
career attests, it wasn’t without influence. In fact,
it was Berlioz’s score, along with its one conceivable forerunner, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,
that introduced Wagner to the central issues of
his career—the relationship between music and
drama, and the expressive potential of orchestral music. In that sense, as in many others,
Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet was a visionary work,
and it raised issues for the rest of the nineteenth
century to face. And in its use of kaleidoscopic
time frames and shifting perspectives, as well as
MOST RECENT CSO
PERFORMANCES (COMPLETE)
July 9, 1988, Ravinia Festival. Frederica
von Stade, Philip Creech, and John
Cheek as soloists; Chicago Symphony
Chorus (Margaret Hillis, director);
James Levine conducting
April 3 & 5, 2008, Orchestra Hall. Isabel
Leonard, Michael Schade, and Laurent
Naouri as soloists; Chicago Symphony
Chorus (Duain Wolfe, director); Valery
Gergiev conducting
MOST RECENT CSO
PERFORMANCES (SELECTIONS)
January 5, 7 & 10, 2012, Orchestra Hall.
Sir Mark Elder conducting
July 26, 2012, Ravinia Festival. James
Conlon conducting
INSTRUMENTATION
three vocal soloists, a mixed chorus,
and an orchestra consisting of two
flutes and piccolo, two oboes and
english horn, two clarinets, four
bassoons, four horns, two trumpets
and two cornets, three trombones
and ophicléide (played here by tuba),
timpani, bass drum, cymbals, antique
cymbals, tambourines, triangles, two
harps, strings
APPROXIMATE
PERFORMANCE TIME
96 minutes
CSO RECORDINGS (SELECTIONS)
1959. Fritz Reiner conducting. CSO
(From the Archives, vol. 11: The Reiner
Era II)
1969. Carlo Maria Giulini conducting.
Angel
1977. Sir Georg Solti conducting.
London (video)
1988. Men of the Chicago Symphony
Chorus (Margaret Hillis, director),
James Levine conducting. CSO (From
the Archives, vol. 18: A Tribute to
James Levine)
its anticipation of cinematic techniques, it’s also
an astonishing precursor of modernism.
Romeo and Juliet was Berlioz’s third symphony,
and he knew that it would puzzle even his
greatest admirers, for it stretched the idea of a
symphony (just a decade after Beethoven’s death)
even beyond his previous two—the Symphonie
fantastique and Harold in Italy. In truth, Romeo
and Juliet is a symphony in name only—and it’s
like no other symphony ever written, including
those by Mahler which it superficially resembles.
Its form is so unconventional, and its demands
so impractical, that Romeo and Juliet is best
known to concertgoers cut in half, in a “highlights” version introduced by the composer
himself—something that can’t be said of any
other symphony in the active repertory. But it
reveals the brilliance and staggering imagination
of Berlioz’s vision only when it is performed
complete, as it is tonight. (Performances of the
full score have always been a rarity. Even the
Orchestra’s founder Theodore Thomas, who was
a great Berlioz advocate and who gave the first
complete U.S. performance of Romeo and Juliet
in Cincinnati in 1878, never presented the whole
work in Chicago, instead introducing it piecemeal during his fifteen seasons as the Orchestra’s
first music director.)
“There will doubtless be no mistake about the
genre of this work,” Berlioz defiantly wrote in the
preface to Romeo and Juliet, knowing, of course,
that it was completely original, even experimental, in form, and therefore unlike any other work
the public knew. On the surface, it’s an unconventional hybrid of two familiar genres—opera
and symphony—although there are pages that
would seem out of place in either. Its table of
contents reads like a scrapbook of ideas and notes
about Romeo and Juliet—bits of commentary,
plot summary, background information—rather
than a musical setting of the play. This is perhaps
the most radical aspect of Berlioz’s achievement:
the suggestion that the head-on view of a work
of art, in a traditional gilt frame, is not the only
way to experience it. His Romeo and Juliet is the
first important musical work to tackle its subject
from different points of view, to circle around his
theme from different angles, like the revolving
arcs of a Calder mobile.
In the course of its seven movements, we
contemplate Shakespeare’s play itself, musical
settings of the Bard’s lines, commentary from
neutral bystanders, and orchestral interpretations
of individual scenes. Certain events are even
presented twice from different perspectives:
the balcony scene, for example, is described in
simple narration and then given a full symphonic
treatment later; the Queen Mab scherzo is
explained in the prologue but not played until
the fourth movement. Berlioz doesn’t attempt
to provide a conventional, linear narrative that
offers a parallel experience to reading the play, as
in a traditional opera or a ballet version. (In fact,
he makes it clear in his preface that he expects
his audience to be familiar with Shakespeare’s
play.) Instead, Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet is a
commentary on a famous artwork and a companion to a popular play, and in that sense it’s very
modern. In the way it presents both the object
and observations about it, it’s even the precursor
for a twentieth-century landmark such as Pierre
Boulez’s Le marteau sans maître, which sets
poems by René Char and also offers instrumental
commentaries on them.
Throughout the score, Berlioz shifts perspective: this is a work told through previews and
reminiscences as well as real-time narrative.
In this score, we sense, as we do in very few
pieces written in the nineteenth century, the
composer standing back from time to time to
assess the work at hand, and we, as listeners,
step completely outside the drama to meditate
on its meaning. We glimpse both the art and its
creator at work. This sense of critical distance
is extraordinary for the time, and when Berlioz
even mentions Shakespeare by name in the text,
it’s no less surprising than Luciano Berio, writing
one hundred fifty years later, dropping the
name of the evening’s conductor into the text of
his Sinfonia.
T he origins of this extraordinary work date
from two decisive events in Berlioz’s creative life. The first was the Shakespeare
season in the fall of 1827 at the Odéon theater
in Paris, presented by an English company and
starring a young Irish actress named Harriet
Smithson. “The impression her outstanding
talent made on my heart and mind,” Berlioz later
wrote, “is only comparable to the upset which I
suffered from the poet whose worthy interpreter
she was.” After he saw her in Romeo and Juliet,
3
he’s reported to have said, “I shall marry Juliet
and I shall write my biggest symphony on the
play.” But, although he both married Harriet
(some six years later) and wrote a grand Romeo
and Juliet symphony (completed another six years
later), Berlioz denied ever making the remark.
In fact, it’s unlikely he was even thinking about
composing a symphony until after the second
dramatic event, in March 1828, when he heard
performances of Beethoven’s Third and Fifth
symphonies. “Beethoven opened before me a
new world of music, as Shakespeare had revealed
a new universe of poetry,” he later recalled.
It’s those two artistic influences, fueled by his
passion for Harriet, that ignited Berlioz’s creative
fires. Romeo and Juliet wasn’t the first product
of this artistic liaison, but it’s the one that links
all three in a single score. In fact, the unconventional mix of genres and styles that characterizes
Romeo and Juliet is the logical outgrowth of his
admiration for Beethoven’s music—the Ninth
Symphony in particular, with its pioneering
mixture of voices and instruments—and
Shakespeare’s plays, with their interplay of
shadow and light, comedy and tragedy.
The blueprint for Romeo and Juliet crystallized
when Berlioz realized that for Beethoven “music
is the be-all and end-all,” and that his symphonies were dramas told in the language of
instrumental music. That suggested the scheme
for Romeo and Juliet, where words and music
together set the stage, but orchestral movements alone capture the emotional essence of
the drama. Berlioz was certainly aware of the
novelty of his concept: “These are the scenes,” he
wrote, “which the orchestra, exploring uncharted
ways, will try to translate into music.” Beethoven
also is no doubt responsible for Berlioz’s stunning
conclusion, represented nowhere better than in
the magnificent love scene of his Romeo and
Juliet, that instrumental music could be “richer,
more varied, less inhibited, and, by its very
indefiniteness, incomparably more powerful”
than vocal music.
Berlioz worked on nothing but his new
Shakespearean symphony for seven months,
beginning in January 1839. He had already
drafted a prose version of the vocal texts and
hired Émile Deschamps, who had published a
translation of the play, to turn out the libretto.
(Berlioz was so impatient to begin composing
4
that he couldn’t wait for Deschamps’s text and
dived in with the purely instrumental second
movement.) Although Berlioz had some difficulty
with the love scene and the finale, the bulk of the
writing went quickly. But like many of his finest
works, this was a lifetime project. Berlioz had
toyed with the idea of composing a piece based
on Shakespeare’s play for more than a decade
before he wrote a note, and even after he completed the score in September 1839, he continued
to make adjustments up to the time of publication
in 1847. From start to finish, Romeo and Juliet
occupied him for the better part of two decades.
The premiere was a triumph—one of the
greatest of Berlioz’s career—and he was shrewd
enough to schedule two more performances over
the next two weeks—a run of first performances
that was highly unusual for the time. The new
work stirred extraordinary interest in Paris’s
intellectual and artistic circles—“the brain of
Paris,” as Balzac put it, turned out for the concert.
Few came away unmoved, and for some, such as
Wagner, it was a transforming experience.
B erlioz divides his exploration of Romeo
and Juliet into seven movements—four are
essentially orchestral, and three, including
the first and last, call for solo voices and chorus.
Berlioz uses solo singers, not, as one might
expect, to represent the principal characters (only
Friar Laurence, in the finale, is actually “cast”),
but as narrators to help him tell the story. The
two outer movements of Romeo and Juliet enclose
the work like large parentheses, the first providing an overview of the musical drama to follow,
the latter discussing its aftermath.
T he opening movement is an unconventional beginning for a symphony, but a
perfectly effective way to raise the curtain
on Shakespeare’s tragedy. Berlioz starts by setting the scene: a bustle of combative, fugal music
suggests people quickly filling the stage; the
Montagues and Capulets fighting in the streets.
The Prince of Verona intervenes in heavy brass
unison phrases (here the suggestion of instrumental recitative is surely indebted to Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony). And then, like eyewitnesses
on the sidelines, voices enter to outline the story
of Romeo and Juliet—to explain what we’ve
already heard, to provide some background,
and to preview the upcoming scenes. Over the
span of the next several minutes, we glance
ahead to the Capulets’ ball and the love scene;
in another “aside” we hear a solo song about first
love and Shakespeare’s art; the tenor introduces
Queen Mab; and, finally, the chorus suggests the
reconciliation that is still six movements away.
The novelty of Berlioz’s plan for this movement
is undiminished, even though we recognize the
same intent in the modern movie trailer: a quick
survey of the story, with just enough highlights to
whet the audience’s appetite.
In the next three movements, the drama
is retold by the orchestra alone (aside from a
few “offstage” voices to open the love scene).
Berlioz himself excerpted these three pieces
for concert performances, and the pattern of
allegro—slow movement—scherzo has made
them a satisfying mini-symphony in the concert
hall ever since. For the first of these (the symphony’s second movement), which depicts Romeo
lost in thought and the party at the Capulets’,
Berlioz writes a slow, haunting introduction and
a fiery allegro. (There’s a wonderful moment, just
before the dancing begins, when Romeo thinks
of Juliet: the action freezes and the oboe indulges
in a rhapsodic daydream.)
Berlioz said that of all his works he preferred
the love scene that is the third movement
of Romeo and Juliet. (He also claimed that
three-quarters of the musicians in Europe agreed
with his appraisal.) It’s certainly one of the most
extraordinary pieces in all music, and the way
Berlioz gradually exposes the depth of the lovers’
passion, phrase by glorious phrase, confirms the
wisdom of choosing to write a love duet without
voices. The cellos suggest Romeo’s speech, the
winds Juliet’s replies, but Berlioz is concerned
only with the emotions that lie behind words.
This is music of great physical beauty and even
eroticism—has anyone ever better captured a lover’s quivering pulse, or the shivers of ecstasy?—
but perhaps most astonishingly of all, it’s music
of deep intimacy. Wagner called one passage “the
most beautiful musical phrase of the century,”
words he surely had expected to save for himself.
Berlioz took great pains over this impassioned
scene—clearly recalling his own Juliet, Harriet
Smithson, in the process—later saying simply
that “one must try to do things coolly that are
most fiery.”
The Queen Mab scherzo, prestissimo and pianissimo from the first measure, is one of Berlioz’s
greatest orchestral triumphs—a landmark of
inventive orchestration and delicate coloring
(the score calls for tuned antique cymbals, which
Berlioz had discovered in Pompeii). Years before
he composed this music, Berlioz mentioned to
Mendelssohn his idea of writing a scherzo based
on Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech. Here, in this
brilliant display of lighter-than-air fireworks,
Berlioz beats Mendelssohn at his own game.
(Mendelssohn’s beloved Shakespearean scherzo,
from his incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, was composed four years after Berlioz’s.)
The last three movements pick up the end of
the story. Berlioz’s fifth movement is a funeral
procession for Juliet—her deathlike sleep induced
by Friar Laurence’s drug—that approaches,
grows, and then recedes into the distance. The
sense of motion and perspective, created by sound
alone, is remarkable. (The choral monotone,
over a continuously moving orchestral backdrop,
recalls the Offertory from Berlioz’s Requiem.)
The orchestral sixth movement, closely synchronized to the dénouement of David Garrick’s
once-standard version of the play, is Berlioz’s
most literally programmatic music: every turn
of events is mirrored in the score, from Romeo’s
hysteria before Juliet’s tomb to her awakening,
the lovers’ joyous reunion, and finally, their
deaths. (The music is so specific and carefully
detailed it could be mimed.)
The finale, too, could almost be staged; by
Berlioz’s own admission, it resembles an operatic
scene, and for the first time in the work, one of
Shakespeare’s characters, Friar Laurence, even
sings. Many nineteenth-century performances of
the play ended after the death of the lovers, but
for Berlioz the final reconciliation of the families was the only possible finale to the tragedy.
Berlioz gives Friar Laurence a grand aria of
surprisingly traditional character, and for just
a moment we are in the world of footlights and
greasepaint. But in the resounding final pages,
with their waves of majestic symphonic and choral phrases, Berlioz reminds us again, as he has
throughout this work, that the greatest theater of
all is the one in our minds. Phillip Huscher has been the program annotator for the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1987.
5
BERLIOZ’S ROMEO AND JULIET
PART 1
1. Introduction: Combats—Tumult—Intervention of the Prince—
Prologue—
Mezzo-Soprano and Semi-Chorus
D’anciennes haines endormies
Ont surgi, comme de l’enfer;
Capulets, Montagus, deux maisons ennemies,
Dans Vérone ont croisé le fer.
Pourtant, de ces sanglants désordres
Le prince a réprimé le cours,
En menaçant de mort ceux qui, malgré ses ordres,
Aux justices du glaive auraient encore recours.
Dans ces instants de calme une fête
est donnée
Par le vieux chef des Capulets.
Ancient slumbering hates
Have risen up as if from hell.
Capulets, Montagues, two enemy clans,
Have crossed blades in Verona.
However, the prince has suppressed
These bloody riots,
Threatening death for any who, despite his orders,
Again have recourse to the justice of the sword.
In these moments of calm a party is given
By the old head of the Capulet family.
Mezzo-Soprano
Le jeune Roméo, plaignant sa destinée,
Vient tristement errer à l’entour du palais;
Car il aime d’amour Juliette . . . la fille
Des ennemis de sa famille! . . .
Young Romeo, bemoaning his fate,
Comes wandering sadly around the palace;
For he loves with adoration Juliet . . . daughter
Of his family’s enemy! . . .
Mezzo-Soprano and Semi-Chorus
Le bruit des instruments, les chants mélodieux
Partent des salons où l’or brille,
Excitant et la danse et les éclats joyeux—
The sound of instruments, the pleasant singing
Wafts out of the salons where gold gleams,
Animating the dancing and the festivity—
Semi-Chorus
La fête est terminée, et quand tout
bruit expire,
Sous les arcades on entend
Les danseurs fatigués s’éloigner en chantant;
Hélas! et Roméo soupire,
Car il a dû quitter Juliette!—Soudain,
Pour respirer encore cet air qu’elle respire,
Il franchit les murs du jardin.
6
The ball is ended, and when all its noise has
died away,
We can hear under the arcades
The exhausted dancers going home, singing.
Alas! Romeo sighs,
Because he is forced to leave Juliet!—Suddenly,
To breathe again the air she breathes,
He vaults the garden walls.
Déjà sur son balcon la blanche Juliette
Paraît . . . et, se croyant seule jusques au jour,
Confie à la nuit son amour.
Roméo palpitant d’une joie inquiète
Se découvre à Juliette, et de son coeur
Les feux éclatent à leur tour.
Already on her balcony, pale Juliet appears . . .
And believing herself alone until daybreak,
Confides her love to the night.
Romeo, trembling with anxious joy,
Reveals himself to Juliet, and from her heart
The flames leap up in response.
Strophes—
Mezzo-Soprano
Premiers transports que nul n’oublie!
Premiers aveux, premiers serments
de deux amants
Sous les étoiles d’Italie;
Dans cet air chaud et sans zéphirs,
Que l’oranger au loin parfume,
où se consume
Le rossignol en longs soupirs!
Quel art, dans sa langue choisie,
Rendrait vos célestes appas?
Premier amour! n’êtes-vous pas
Plus haut que toute poésie?
Ou ne seriez vous point, dans notre exil mortel,
Cette poésie elle-même,
Dont Shakespeare lui seul eut le secret suprême
Et qu’il remporta dans le ciel?
Heureux enfants aux coeurs de flamme!
Liés d’amour par le hasard d’un seul regard;
Vivant tous deux d’une seule âme!
Cachez-le bien sous l’ombre en fleurs,
Ce feu divin qui vous embrase; si pure extase
Que ses paroles sont des pleurs!
Quel roi de vos chastes délires
Croirait égaler les transports?
Heureux enfants! . . . et quels trésors
Paieraient un seul de vos sourires?
Ah! savourez longtemps cette coupe de miel,
Plus suave que les calices
Où les anges de Dieu, jaloux de vos délices,
Puisent le bonheur dans le ciel!
First love that none can forget!
First vows, first declarations
of two lovers,
Beneath the Italian stars;
In this warm and breathless air,
Perfumed by the distant orange blossom,
where the nightingale
Exhausts herself in long sighs!
What art, in its chosen language,
Can do justice to your heavenly beauty?
First love! Are you not
Higher than all poetry?
Or, in our mortal exile, will you not be
That very poetry
Of which Shakespeare alone knew the secret,
And which he took with him to heaven!
Happy children with hearts aflame!
Bound in love by the mere chance of a single look;
Living together within a single soul!
Hide it well amid the flowery shades,
This divine fire which burns you; such pure ecstasy
That its words are tears!
What king thinks himself equal to the
Transports of your chaste happiness!
Happy children! and what treasures
Can buy a single one of your smiles!
Ah, savor well this goblet of honey
Sweeter than the chalices
Which the angels of God, jealous of your joys,
Pour out happiness in heaven!
Tenor and Semi-Chorus
Bientôt de Roméo la pâle rêverie
Met tous ses amis en gaieté;
Soon Romeo’s pallor and dreaminess
Set all his friends laughing:
7
Tenor
«Mon cher, dit l’élégant Mercutio, je parie
Que la reine Mab t’aura visité.»
“My dear,” says elegant Mercutio, “then I see
Queen Mab hath been with you.”
Scherzetto
Tenor and Semi-Chorus
Mab, la messagère
Fluette et légère! . . .
Elle a pour char une coque de noix
Que l’écureuil a façonnée;
Les doigts de l’araignée
Ont filé ses harnois.
Durant les nuits, la fée, en ce mince équipage,
Galope follement dans le cerveau d’un page
Qui rêve espiègle tour
Ou molle sérénade
Au clair de lune sous la tour.
En poursuivant sa promenade
La petite reine s’abat
Sur le col bronzé d’un soldat . . .
Il rêve canonnades
Et vives estocades . . .
Le tambour! . . . la trompette! . . . il s’éveille, et
d’abord
Jure, et prie en jurant toujours, puis se rendort
Et ronfle avec ses camarades.—
C’est Mab qui fasait tout ce bacchanal!
C’est elle encore qui, dans un rêve, habille
La jeune fille
Et la ramène au bal.
Mais le coq chante, le jour brille,
Mab fuit comme un éclair
Dans l’air.
Mab, the light and airy messenger!
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut
made by the joiner squirrel;
The spiders’ fingers
have platted her harness.
And in this slender vehicle the fairy gallops
Night by night—in the page’s brain
Who dreams of mischief
Or sweet serenading
By moonlight under the tower.
Continuing her outing sometime
The tiny queen makes a landing
On the sun-baked neck of a soldier . . .
Then dreams he of cannonades,
Of lively ambuscadoes . . .
The drum! . . . the trumpet! . . . he starts
and wakes
Then swears a prayer or two and sleeps again
And snores with his comrades.—
This is Mab who makes this bacchanal!
And it is she again who makes
The young girl dress up in her dream
And takes her back to the ball.
But the cock crows, the day breaks,
Mab flies off like a lightning flash
Into the air.
Semi-Chorus
Bientôt la mort est souveraine.
Capulets, Montagus, domptés par les douleurs,
Se rapprochent enfin pour abjurer la haine
Qui fit verser tant de sang et de pleurs.
8
Soon death rules our scene.
Capulets, Montagues, subdued by sorrow,
Agree at last to renounce the hatred
Which has shed so much blood and tears.
Part 2
2. Romeo alone—Sadness—Distant sound of dancing and music—Festivities at the
Capulets (Orchestra)
3. S
erene night—The Capulets’ garden, silent and deserted—The young Capulets, leaving
the festivity, pass by singing recollections of the ball—
Chorus 1 and 2
Ohé, Capulets, bonsoir, bonsoir!
Ohé, bonsoir, cavaliers au revoir!
Ah, quelle nuit, quel festin!
Bal divin, quel festin . . .
Que de folles paroles . . .
Belles Véronaises
Sous les grands mélêzes,
Allez rêver de bal et d’amour
Jusqu’au jour.
Tra la la la!
La belle fête . . .
Dames Véronaises . . .
Allez rêver de bal et d’amour.
Yo, Capulets, good night!
Yo, good night, boys, ciao for now!
Ah, what a night, what a ball!
What a fabulous dance.
What crazy talk . . .
Lovely girls of Verona
Underneath those high larch trees,
Go dream of dancing and love
Till dawn comes.
Tra la la la!
What a great party . . .
Dames of Verona . . .
Go dream of dancing and love.
Love scene (Orchestra)
4. Queen Mab, the Dream Fairy (Scherzo) (Orchestra)
Intermission
Part 3
5. J uliet’s funeral cortège
Chorus of the Capulets
Jetez des fleurs pour la vierge expirée!
Jusqu’au tombeau, jetez des fleurs.
Suivez jusqu’au tombeau notre soeur adorée.
Cast down flowers for the dead maiden!
As far as the grave, cast down flowers (etc.).
Follow our beloved sister to the grave.
6. Romeo at the tomb of the Capulets: Invocation—Juliet’s awakening. Delirious joy,
despair, final agony and death of the two lovers (Orchestra)
7. Finale: The crowd rushes to the cemetery—Brawling between the Capulets
and Montagues—
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Chorus 1 and 2
Quoi! Roméo de retour! Roméo!
What! Romeo is back! Romeo!
Chorus of the Montagues
Pour Juliette il s’enferme au tombeau
Des Capulets que sa famille abhorre!
For Juliet he shuts himself up in the tomb
Of the Capulets, his family’s enemies!
Chorus of the Capulets
Des Montagus ont brisé le tombeau
De Juliette expirée à l’aurore!
The Montagues have broken into the tomb
Of Juliet who died this morning!
Chorus 1 and 2
Ah! Malédiction sur eux!
Roméo, Roméo, ciel! morts tous les deux!
Juliette, Juliette, ciel! morts tous les deux!
Et leur sang fume encore!
Ah! quel mystère affreux!
Ah! Curses on them!
Romeo, Romeo, heavens! both dead!
Juliet, Juliet, heavens! both dead!
And their blood is still warm!
Ah, what a terrible mystery!
Recitative
Friar Laurence
Je vais dévoiler le mystère:
Ce cadavre, c’était l’époux
De Juliette!—Voyez-vous
Ce corps étendu sur la terre?
C’était la femme hélas! de Roméo!—C’est moi
qui les ai mariés!
I will unravel the mystery.
This corpse was once the husband of
Juliet!—Behold
This body extended on the ground:
It was, alas, the wife of Romeo!
It was I that married them.
Chorus 1 and 2
Mariés!
Married!
Friar Laurence
Oui, je dois
L’avouer.—J’y voyais le gage salutaire
D’une amitié future entre vos deux maisons . . .
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I admit it;
I saw in this the saving token
Of future friendship between your two houses . . .
Chorus 1 and 2
Amis des Capulets/Montagus,
Nous! . . . nous les maudissons!
Us, friends of the Capulets/Montagues!
Us! . . . we curse them!
Friar Laurence
Mais vous avez repris la guerre
de famille! . . .
Pour fuir un autre hymen
La malheureuse fille
Au désespoir vint me trouver.
«Vous seul, s’écria-t-elle,
Auriez pu me sauver!
Je n’ai plus qu’à mourir!»
Dans ce péril extrême,
Je lui fis prendre, afin de conjurer le sort,
Un breuvage qui, le soir même,
Lui prêta la pâleur et le froid de la mort.
But you went on with your family war!
To escape another marriage
The unhappy girl
In her despair came to find me.
“Only you,” she cried,
“Can save me now,
Or I have no recourse but death!”
In this extreme danger,
I tried to change destiny by making
her take
A potion, which, that very evening,
Lent her the pallor and chill of death.
Chorus 1 and 2
Un breuvage!
A potion!
Friar Laurence
Et je venais sans crainte ici la secourir . . .
Mais Roméo trompé dans la funèbre enceinte
M’avait devancé pour mourir
Sur le corps de sa bien-aimée;
Et, presqu’ à son réveil, Juliette informée
De cette mort qu’il porte en son sein dévasté,
Du fer de Roméo s’était contre elle armée
Et passait dans l’éternité
Quand j’ai paru!—Voilà toute la vérité.
And I came here unafraid to help her . . .
But Romeo, misled in the field of death,
Had got here before me to die
On the body of his beloved;
And, as soon as she woke up, Juliet, finding
That he carried death in his broken body,
Used Romeo’s dagger against herself
And had passed from us into eternal life
When I arrived!—that is the whole truth.
Old Capulets and Montagues
Mariés!
Married!
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Aria­—
Friar Laurence
Pauvres enfants que je pleure,
Tombés ensemble avant l’heure;
Sur votre sombre demeure
Viendra pleurer l’avenir!
Grande par vous dans l’histoire,
Vérone un jour sans y croire,
Aura sa peine et sa gloire
Dans votre seul souvenir!
Où sont-ils maintenant, ces ennemis farouches?
Capulets! Montagus! venez, voyez, touchez . . .
La haine dans vos coeurs, l’injure dans
vos bouches,
De ces pâles amants, barbares, approchez!
Dieu vous punit dans vos tendresses,
Ses châtiments, ses foudres vengeresses
Ont le secret de nos terreurs!
Entendez-vous sa voix qui tonne:
«Pour que là haut ma vengeance pardonne
Oubliez vos propres fureurs.»
Poor children for whom I weep,
Fallen together before your time,
Future generations will come to weep
At your dark dwelling!
Verona one day, without knowing it,
Will become a city of renown
And its suffering and glory will come
From your memory alone!
Where are they now, these bitter enemies?
Capulets! Montagues! come, look, touch . . .
With hate in your hearts, invective on your
lips,
Villains, come near these pallid lovers!
God punishes you through sensitivity,
His chastisement, his avenging flames
Hold the secret of our fears!
Can you hear his voice of thunder:
“If my vengeance is to pardon you on high,
Forget your anger.”
Chorus of the Capulets
Mais notre sang rougit leur glaive!
But our blood reddens their swords!
Chorus of the Montagues
Le nôtre aussi contre eux s’élève!
And ours rises up against them!
Chorus of the Capulets
Ils ont tué Tybalt . . .
Et Pâris donc?
Perfides! point de paix!
They killed Tybalt . . .
And Paris?
Villains! no peace!
Chorus of the Montagues
Qui tua Mercutio?
Et Benvolio?
Non, lâches, point de trêve!
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Who killed Mercutio?
And Benvolio?
No, cowards, no mercy!
Friar Laurence
Silence! Malheureux! Pouvez-vous sans remords,
Devant un tel amour étaler tant de haine!
Faut-il que votre rage en ces lieux se déchaîne,
Rallumée aux flambeaux des morts?
Grand Dieu, qui vois au fond de l’âme,
Tu sais si mes voeux étaient purs!
Grand Dieu, d’un rayon de ta flamme,
Touche ces coeurs sombres et durs!
Et que ton souffle tutélaire,
A ma voix sur eux se levant,
Chasse et dissipe leur colère,
Comme la paille au gré du vent!
Silence! Sinners! How can you impenitently
Display such hatred in the face of such love!
Do you have to unleash your fury in this place,
Lit up by the candles of the dead!
Good Lord, you who see the depths of our hearts,
You know if my wishes were worthy!
Good Lord, touch these hard and bitter hearts
With a ray of your glory!
At my prayer, may your instructing breath
Raise itself upon them,
Hunt down and scatter their anger,
Like straw before the wind!
Chorus of the Montagues
O Juliette, douce fleur,
Dans ces moments suprêmes
Les Montagus sont prêts eux-mêmes
A s’attendrir sur ton malheur.
O Juliet, sweet flower
In this awesome moment
The Montagues themselves are ready
To weep at your misfortune.
Chorus of the Capulets
O Roméo, jeune astre éteint,
Dans ces moments suprêmes
Les Capulets sont prêts eux-mêmes
A s’attendrir sur ton destin.
Dieu! quel prodige étrange!
Plus d’horreur, plus de fiel!
Mais des larmes du Ciel
Toute notre âme change.
O Romeo, extinguished star,
In this awesome moment
The Capulets themselves are ready
To weep at your fate.
God! What strange wonder!
More horror, more bitterness!
But the tears of heaven
Have transformed all our being.
Oath of reconciliation
Friar Laurence
Jurez donc, par l’auguste symbole,
Sur le corps de la fille et sur le corps du fils,
Par ce bois douloureux qui console;
Jurez tous, jurez par le saint crucifix,
De sceller entre vous une chaîne éternelle
De tendre charité, d’amitié fraternelle;
Et Dieu, qui tient en main le
futur jugement,
Au livre du pardon inscrira ce serment!
Swear, then, by the highest symbol,
On the bodies of your daughter and your son,
By this wood of sorrows, which consoles;
Swear all of you by the holy cross,
To bind yourselves with an eternal chain
Of tender love, of brotherly friendship;
And God, who holds the scales of
future judgment,
Will write this oath in the book of forgiveness!
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Semi-Chorus and Friar Laurence, Chorus 1 and 2
Jurez tous (nous jurons) par l’auguste symbole
Sur le corps de la fille et sur le corps du fils,
Par ce bois douloureux qui console,
Jurez tous (nous jurons tous) par le saint crucifix,
De sceller entre vous (nous) une chaîne éternelle
Au livre du pardon inscrira ce serment!
All swear (we swear) by the highest symbol,
On the bodies of our daughter and our son,
By this wood of sorrows, which consoles;
All swear (we all swear) by the holy cross,
To bind yourselves (ourselves) with an
eternal chain
Of tender love, of brotherly friendship;
And God, who holds the scales of
future judgement
Will write this oath in the book of forgiveness!
Oui, jurez tous (nous jurons) par l’auguste symbole
Sur le corps de la fille et sur le corps du fils,
Par ce bois douloureux qui console,
Vous jurez (nous jurons) d’éteindre enfin
Tous vos (nos) ressentiments, amis, pour toujours!
Yes, all swear (we swear) by the highest symbol,
On the bodies of our daughter and our son,
By this wood of sorrows, which consoles;
Swear (we swear) to end at last
All your (our) enmity, and be friends forever!
De tendre charité, d’amitié fraternelle!
Et Dieu, qui tient en main le futur jugement,
—Text by Émile Deschamps
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© 2016 Chicago Symphony Orchestra