Benvenuto Cellini (Salzburg Festival)

Hector Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini, a French opera written in the 1830s, is so complex, richly detailed and prolifically imaginative that Berlioz's contemporaries often considered it unplayable. However, this is resoundingly proven false in the 2007 Salzburg Festival production of director Philipp Stölzl, conductor Valery Gergiev ("the wild man of music") and a high-caliber cast accompanied by the Vienna Philharmonic and its chorus. Called "the surprise hit of this year's Salzburg festival" (Bloomberg), the production met with rave reviews.