Faust invites

Today  the Astrakhan Opera and Ballet Theatre invites its audience to the dramatic legend "The Damnation of Faust" by French composer Hector Berlioz.The  Astrakhans will appreciate the grandeur of the composer’s music and the greatness of Goethe's text. And on March 10 the Astrakhan Theatre company will present its version to sophisticated Moscow public as a part of the prestigious theater festival  "the Golden Mask".

Berlioz went down in history as a courageous artist who expanded the expressive possibilities of musical art, as a romantic who acutely depicted violent spiritual impulses of his time, as a composer who closely linked music with other arts, as the creator of  program symphonic music which made up Romantic era progress, established in XIX century composers’ works.

Each Berlioz concert got new listeners to his music.

Interesting facts from Hector Berlioz life:

• In childhood and adolescence, his father forbade him learning to play the piano. The boy mastered playing on wind and string instruments by himself.

• He worked as a chief librarian at the Paris Conservatory. Writing critiques brought him more money than writing music.

• Russia was one of the first countries to appreciate the musical abilities of Berlioz.

• He met and had personal acquaintance with many eminent people in different countries - with Zh.Sand, N. Paganini, M. Balakirev and Mussorgsky.

• He never wrote articles to advertise  in the press his own musical compositions.