A concert that explores the anxieties and romantic visions of two great European composers, performed by the Orchestra of the Teatro Regio Torino, conducted by Giulio Cilona, with the participation of mezzo-soprano Martina Baroni.

Opening the program are the Sieben frühe Lieder by Alban Berg: seven youthful songs composed between 1905 and 1908, set to texts by poets such as Rilke and Lenau. The orchestration, completed in 1928, elegantly captures the tension between Romanticism and modernity. Evocative melodies and refined orchestral colors accompany timeless themes: night, love, dreams, nature.

Following this, the powerful Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz, a quintessential masterpiece of visionary Romanticism. Five movements narrate the descent into the depths of the soul of a young artist consumed by obsessive love and opium, amidst dreams, hallucinations, and infernal witches’ sabbaths. A theatrical, daring work built around a recurring theme—the idée fixe—that acoustically represents the persistent presence of the beloved figure haunting the artist’s tormented dreams.