PROGRAM

ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIFTH SEASON

Chicago Symphony OrchestraRiccardo 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 8:00Saturday, April 9, 2016, at 8:00

Riccardo Muti ConductorEkaterina Gubanova Mezzo-sopranoPaul Groves TenorDmitry Belosselskiy BassChicago Symphony Chorus

Duain Wolfe Director

BerliozRomeo and Juliet, Op. 17Part 1 1. Introduction: Combats—Tumult—Intervention of the Prince—Prologue—Strophes—

ScherzettoPart 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.

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COMMENTS by Phillip Huscher

Hector BerliozBorn 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 nine-teenth 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 concep-tion of,” he later recalled of that night, “and which I now had to try to explain to myself.”

Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet struck Paris like a thunderbolt in 1839 and it’s still a work of singu-lar 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 prece-dent on one hand, and without direct descen-dants 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 conceiv-able 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 orches-tral 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

COMPOSEDJanuary 24–September 8, 1839

FIRST PERFORMANCENovember 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

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

INSTRUMENTATIONthree 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 TIME96 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)

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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 “high-lights” 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 piece-meal 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 experimen-tal, in form, and therefore unlike any other work the public knew. On the surface, it’s an uncon-ventional 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 compan-ion 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 perspec-tive: 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 cre-ative 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,

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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 unconven-tional 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 sym-phonies 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 move-ments 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

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 com-pleted 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 provid-ing an overview of the musical drama to follow, the latter discussing its aftermath.

T he opening movement is an unconven-tional beginning for a symphony, but a perfectly effective way to raise the curtain

on Shakespeare’s tragedy. Berlioz starts by set-ting 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 instru-mental 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,

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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 sym-phony’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 lov-er’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 pia-nissimo 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 syn-chronized 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 fami-lies 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 cho-ral 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.

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BERLIOZ’S ROMEO AND JULIET

PART 1

1. Introduction: Combats—Tumult—Intervention of the Prince—

Prologue—

Mezzo-Soprano and Semi-Chorus

D’anciennes haines endormiesOnt surgi, comme de l’enfer;Capulets, Montagus, deux maisons ennemies,Dans Vérone ont croisé le fer.Pourtant, de ces sanglants désordresLe 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 donnéePar le vieux chef des Capulets.

Mezzo-Soprano

Le jeune Roméo, plaignant sa destinée,Vient tristement errer à l’entour du palais;Car il aime d’amour Juliette . . . la filleDes ennemis de sa famille! . . .

Mezzo-Soprano and Semi-Chorus

Le bruit des instruments, les chants mélodieuxPartent des salons où l’or brille,Excitant et la danse et les éclats joyeux—

Semi-Chorus

La fête est terminée, et quand tout bruit expire,

Sous les arcades on entendLes 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.

Ancient slumbering hatesHave risen up as if from hell.Capulets, Montagues, two enemy clans,Have crossed blades in Verona.However, the prince has suppressedThese 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.

Young Romeo, bemoaning his fate,Comes wandering sadly around the palace;For he loves with adoration Juliet . . . daughterOf his family’s enemy! . . .

The sound of instruments, the pleasant singingWafts out of the salons where gold gleams,Animating the dancing and the festivity—

The ball is ended, and when all its noise has died away,

We can hear under the arcadesThe 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.

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Déjà sur son balcon la blanche JulietteParaît . . . et, se croyant seule jusques au jour,Confie à la nuit son amour.Roméo palpitant d’une joie inquièteSe découvre à Juliette, et de son coeurLes feux éclatent à leur tour.

Strophes—

Mezzo-Soprano

Premiers transports que nul n’oublie!Premiers aveux, premiers serments de deux amantsSous les étoiles d’Italie;Dans cet air chaud et sans zéphirs,Que l’oranger au loin parfume, où se consumeLe rossignol en longs soupirs!Quel art, dans sa langue choisie,Rendrait vos célestes appas?Premier amour! n’êtes-vous pasPlus haut que toute poésie?Ou ne seriez vous point, dans notre exil mortel,Cette poésie elle-même,Dont Shakespeare lui seul eut le secret suprêmeEt 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 extaseQue ses paroles sont des pleurs!Quel roi de vos chastes déliresCroirait égaler les transports?Heureux enfants! . . . et quels trésorsPaieraient un seul de vos sourires?Ah! savourez longtemps cette coupe de miel, Plus suave que les calicesOù les anges de Dieu, jaloux de vos délices, Puisent le bonheur dans le ciel!

Tenor and Semi-Chorus

Bientôt de Roméo la pâle rêverieMet tous ses amis en gaieté;

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 heartThe flames leap up in response.

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 nightingaleExhausts herself in long sighs!What art, in its chosen language,Can do justice to your heavenly beauty?First love! Are you notHigher than all poetry?Or, in our mortal exile, will you not beThat very poetryOf 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 ecstasyThat its words are tears!What king thinks himself equal to theTransports of your chaste happiness!Happy children! and what treasuresCan buy a single one of your smiles!Ah, savor well this goblet of honey Sweeter than the chalicesWhich the angels of God, jealous of your joys, Pour out happiness in heaven!

Soon Romeo’s pallor and dreaminessSet all his friends laughing:

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Tenor

«Mon cher, dit l’élégant Mercutio, je parieQue la reine Mab t’aura visité.»

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 promenadeLa petite reine s’abatSur le col bronzé d’un soldat . . . Il rêve canonnades Et vives estocades . . .Le tambour! . . . la trompette! . . . il s’éveille, et

d’abordJure, 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.

Semi-Chorus

Bientôt la mort est souveraine.Capulets, Montagus, domptés par les douleurs,Se rapprochent enfin pour abjurer la haineQui fit verser tant de sang et de pleurs.

“My dear,” says elegant Mercutio, “then I seeQueen Mab hath been with you.”

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 gallopsNight by night—in the page’s brain Who dreams of mischief Or sweet serenading By moonlight under the tower.Continuing her outing sometimeThe tiny queen makes a landingOn the sun-baked neck of a soldier . . . Then dreams he of cannonades, Of lively ambuscadoes . . .The drum! . . . the trumpet! . . . he starts

and wakesThen 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.

Soon death rules our scene.Capulets, Montagues, subdued by sorrow,Agree at last to renounce the hatredWhich has shed so much blood and tears.

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Part 2

2. Romeo alone—Sadness—Distant sound of dancing and music—Festivities at the Capulets (Orchestra)

3. Serene 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 VéronaisesSous 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.

Love scene (Orchestra)

4. Queen Mab, the Dream Fairy (Scherzo) (Orchestra)

Intermission

Part 3

5. Juliet’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.

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—

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 VeronaUnderneath 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.

Cast down flowers for the dead maiden!As far as the grave, cast down flowers (etc.).Follow our beloved sister to the grave.

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Chorus 1 and 2

Quoi! Roméo de retour! Roméo!

Chorus of the Montagues

Pour Juliette il s’enferme au tombeauDes Capulets que sa famille abhorre!

Chorus of the Capulets

Des Montagus ont brisé le tombeauDe Juliette expirée à l’aurore!

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!

Recitative

Friar Laurence

Je vais dévoiler le mystère:Ce cadavre, c’était l’épouxDe Juliette!—Voyez-vousCe corps étendu sur la terre?C’était la femme hélas! de Roméo!—C’est moi

qui les ai mariés!

Chorus 1 and 2

Mariés!

Friar Laurence

Oui, je doisL’avouer.—J’y voyais le gage salutaireD’une amitié future entre vos deux maisons . . .

What! Romeo is back! Romeo!

For Juliet he shuts himself up in the tombOf the Capulets, his family’s enemies!

The Montagues have broken into the tombOf Juliet who died this morning!

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!

I will unravel the mystery.This corpse was once the husband ofJuliet!—BeholdThis body extended on the ground:It was, alas, the wife of Romeo!It was I that married them.

Married!

I admit it;I saw in this the saving tokenOf future friendship between your two houses . . .

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Chorus 1 and 2

Amis des Capulets/Montagus, Nous! . . . nous les maudissons!

Friar Laurence

Mais vous avez repris la guerre de famille! . . .

Pour fuir un autre hymenLa malheureuse filleAu 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.

Chorus 1 and 2

Un breuvage!

Friar Laurence

Et je venais sans crainte ici la secourir . . .Mais Roméo trompé dans la funèbre enceinteM’avait devancé pour mourirSur le corps de sa bien-aimée;Et, presqu’ à son réveil, Juliette informéeDe cette mort qu’il porte en son sein dévasté,Du fer de Roméo s’était contre elle arméeEt passait dans l’éternitéQuand j’ai paru!—Voilà toute la vérité.

Old Capulets and Montagues

Mariés!

Us, friends of the Capulets/Montagues! Us! . . . we curse them!

But you went on with your family war!To escape another marriageThe unhappy girlIn 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 takeA potion, which, that very evening,Lent her the pallor and chill of death.

And I came here unafraid to help her . . .But Romeo, misled in the field of death,Had got here before me to dieOn the body of his beloved;And, as soon as she woke up, Juliet, findingThat he carried death in his broken body,Used Romeo’s dagger against herselfAnd had passed from us into eternal lifeWhen I arrived!—that is the whole truth.

A potion!

Married!

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Aria —

Friar Laurence

Pauvres enfants que je pleure,Tombés ensemble avant l’heure;Sur votre sombre demeureViendra pleurer l’avenir!Grande par vous dans l’histoire,Vérone un jour sans y croire,Aura sa peine et sa gloireDans 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 vengeressesOnt le secret de nos terreurs!Entendez-vous sa voix qui tonne:«Pour que là haut ma vengeance pardonneOubliez vos propres fureurs.»

Chorus of the Capulets

Mais notre sang rougit leur glaive!

Chorus of the Montagues

Le nôtre aussi contre eux s’élève!

Chorus of the Capulets

Ils ont tué Tybalt . . .Et Pâris donc?Perfides! point de paix!

Chorus of the Montagues

Qui tua Mercutio?Et Benvolio?Non, lâches, point de trêve!

Poor children for whom I weep,Fallen together before your time,Future generations will come to weepAt your dark dwelling!Verona one day, without knowing it,Will become a city of renownAnd its suffering and glory will comeFrom 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 flamesHold the secret of our fears!Can you hear his voice of thunder:“If my vengeance is to pardon you on high,Forget your anger.”

But our blood reddens their swords!

And ours rises up against them!

They killed Tybalt . . .And Paris?Villains! no peace!

Who killed Mercutio?And Benvolio?No, cowards, no mercy!

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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!

Chorus of the Montagues

O Juliette, douce fleur,Dans ces moments suprêmesLes Montagus sont prêts eux-mêmesA s’attendrir sur ton malheur.

Chorus of the Capulets

O Roméo, jeune astre éteint,Dans ces moments suprêmesLes Capulets sont prêts eux-mêmesA s’attendrir sur ton destin.Dieu! quel prodige étrange!Plus d’horreur, plus de fiel!Mais des larmes du CielToute notre âme change.

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 éternelleDe tendre charité, d’amitié fraternelle;Et Dieu, qui tient en main le

futur jugement,Au livre du pardon inscrira ce serment!

Silence! Sinners! How can you impenitentlyDisplay 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 heartsWith a ray of your glory!At my prayer, may your instructing breathRaise itself upon them,Hunt down and scatter their anger,Like straw before the wind!

O Juliet, sweet flowerIn this awesome momentThe Montagues themselves are readyTo weep at your misfortune.

O Romeo, extinguished star,In this awesome momentThe Capulets themselves are readyTo weep at your fate.God! What strange wonder!More horror, more bitterness!But the tears of heavenHave transformed all our being.

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 chainOf 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 symboleSur 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

De tendre charité, d’amitié fraternelle!Et Dieu, qui tient en main le futur jugement,

Au livre du pardon inscrira ce serment!

Oui, jurez tous (nous jurons) par l’auguste symboleSur le corps de la fille et sur le corps du fils,Par ce bois douloureux qui console,Vous jurez (nous jurons) d’éteindre enfinTous vos (nos) ressentiments, amis, pour toujours!

—Text by Émile Deschamps

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 chainOf tender love, of brotherly friendship;And God, who holds the scales of

future judgementWill write this oath in the book of forgiveness!

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!

© 2016 Chicago Symphony Orchestra