I have just returned from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dear Readers. Today's concert was part of the Berlioz festival they have been doing over the past few weeks to (belatedly) mark the bicentennial of the composer's birth. The program featured the Symphonie Fantastique and an obscure companion piece called Lelio. An avant garde theatre company, Complicite, was invited to expand on the music.
It was a noble experiment, but it really did not work. The Complicite touches included various projections--including a Warhol-like film of someone sleeping (perhaps it was supposed to be Mr. Berlioz dreaming)--on a scrim in front of the orchestra, various lighting effects, instruments floating from the orchestra toward the ceiling and several actors/dancers seated with the orchestra doing stylized movements now and then.
In reality, no theatrical enhancements of any sort would help Lelio. (There are excellent reasons why it is obscure.) The symphony, of course, needs no help, and I found the theatrical touches distracting rather than illuminating.
