Revisit Aurora’s landmark Orchestral Theatre staging of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique at the 2019 BBC Proms.
Berlioz – Symphonie fantastique (from memory)
Mathew Baynton – actor
Nicholas Collon – conductor
Jane Mitchell & James Bonas – directors
Kate Wicks – production designer
Will Reynolds – consultant designer
Cydney Uffindell-Phillips – movement consultant
Concept and script by Jane Mitchell
Waltz through a glittering ball, enter a feverish dream, march to your own execution, and spin into dark delirium at a witches’ sabbath. Take on the opium-infused visions of a tortured artist haunted by unrequited passion in this Orchestral Theatre production of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.
Inspired by the composer’s own romantic infatuation with a young actress, this epoch-making work unfolds as a cinematic fantasy full of wild imagination and demonic madness – by turns gorgeous and grotesque.
Aurora Orchestra and actor Mathew Baynton (Horrible Histories, Ghosts) invite you to a creative orchestral journey through Berlioz’s hallucinatory tale of ecstasy and despair, passion and obsession. This unique concert interweaves a memorised performance of the Symphonie fantastique with theatrical design, lighting, movement and Berlioz’s own words about his music, alongside a presentation of the work’s musical ideas with live excerpts.
'The performance was as vivid to the ear as it was to the eye.’ ★★★★ The Guardian
Filmed live at the Royal Albert Hall on Thursday 12 September 2019.
Orchestral Theatre staging concept by Aurora Orchestra.
Footage courtesy of BBC Proms.
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