Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust

About the album

“The most dramatic piece that Berlioz ever wrote,” is how conductor John Nelson describes La Damnation de Faust. The composer designated this thrilling hybrid of oratorio and opera a ‘légende dramatique’. Following in the triumphant footsteps of Les Troyens, also recorded at the Auditorium Erasme in Strasbourg, this performance reunites Nelson and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg with singers Michael Spyres, Joyce DiDonato and Nicolas Courjal.

This recording was made in the Auditorium Erasme in Strasbourg in April 2019, two years after Nelson, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and a superb cast including Joyce DiDonato, Michael Spyres and Nicolas Courjal brought Berlioz’s Les Troyens to life in the same venue. The associated Erato recording of the huge two-part opera has gone on to win unalloyed praise and multiple major prizes. As the New York Times wrote: “Berlioz’s epic opera has rarely been given such luxury treatment as in this magnificent live recording from France.”

*The New York Times – Best Classical Music Tracks of 2019

DiDonato [was] a Marguerite of marvellous elegance and vulnerability, close to delirium in her last scene, an emotion the whole audience could partake in when it was all over.

The Times

Joyce DiDonato is initially demure, then quietly impassioned as Marguerite, and the cor anglais solo in her aria is quite meltingly beautiful.

The Guardian

"And then there’s Joyce DiDonato’s Marguerite – exquisitely sung with just the right plaintive tremor to hint at her prescient awareness of her tragic fate. D’amour l’ardente flamme melts the heart but remains firmly in character rather than a plushy indulgence."

Limelight Magazine