Robin Ticciati & SRSO - Berlioz: Romeo et Juliette - The Observer

We have heard too little of Robin Ticciati recently, as an injury took him out of Glyndebourne's new Béatrice et Bénédict this summer. Here, by way of compensation, is an orchestrally superb new version of Berlioz's "dramatic symphony" loosely based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The sound pictures are precise and subtle in the "serene night", Juliet's funeral cortege, and the fizzing fireworks of the Queen Mab scherzo. The composer was very precise about the layout of his voices: here, Katija Dragojevic is a gorgeously warm mezzo, and Alastair Miles a stentorian bass in the final Serment de réconciliation, but a boxy acoustic underbalances the chorus, especially in this great climax.