Roméo et Juliette

This release, featuring Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra alongside soloists Olga Borodina, Kenneth Tarver and Evgeny Nikitin, comes in the year of Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary. This production of Berlioz’s Romeo et Juliette was recorded live at the Barbican Centre in 2013 as part of a major series which consisted of eight concerts. The series toured across Germany, Austria, France, and the Czech Republic. Berlioz’s Romeo et Juliette sprung from both an obsession with Shakespeare and an obsession with actress Harriet Smithson, who the composer later married. Mezzo-Soprano Olga Borodina is a Grammy-award winning star of the Mariinsky Theatre, and regularly appears at opera houses all over the globe. “Gergiev was in inspirational form and the LSO embraced his reading of Berlioz’s Romeo et Juliette with skill and energy” (The Guardian) “Gergiev’s reading was truly operatic… I left in little doubt that Gergiev and his orchestra are as fine a