There are several choral contributions in Romeo et Juliette—setting the scene after the orchestral introduction, echoing the tenor's words in his scherzetto about Queen Mab, representing the revellers departing after the Capulets' ball, intoning a dirge for Juliet, and, with the bass soloist, providing a massive finale to the whole work—but it is the orchestra, deployed with all Berlioz's remarkable imaginative ear, which provides the essence of this ''dramatic symphony''. From this aspect the present performance ranks high: the Berlin Phil's playing is predictably immaculate, with beautifully rounded, full and non-blaring brass, and Levine's direction makes the most of all the work's drama, emotional intensity and changing moods—an impassioned ''Romeo seul'', a heartfelt ''Scene d'amour'' with a rich climax, an airy Queen Mab Scherzo with great outbursts, and an extremely vivid ''delirious joy, anguish and death'' of the two lovers. The resonant but clean acoustic of the Jesus-Christus church in Berlin gives this performance a warmer, slightly more diffuse sound than Dutoit's lean and lithe Decca reading—could a few rather exaggerated internal pauses be due to a wish to clear the atmosphere?—and the wide dynamic range is captured with complete fidelity. (In the first choral movement a minute change of pitch between a D minor brass chord and a D major chord on the harp immediately after it makes one suspect a tape splice.) It is in the vocal sections that reservations creep in. Not about Anne Sofie von Otter, whose tenderly sympathetic tone rivals Patricia Kern's in Davis's classic Philips recording, and who is infinitely superior to the unsteady and sharp Florence Quivar for Dutoit; not Philip Langridge, as deft as Dutoit's excellent Alberto Cupido, though he could with advantage have been placed a little closer to the mike. But James Morris was not a good choice for Friar Laurence: with his heavy vibrato and sometimes imprecise placing of notes, plummy enunciation and conspicuously poor French vowels he is no match for either Shirley-Quirk (for Davis) or the splendid Tom Krause (for Dutoit). And the chorus, though it tries hard, has none of the verbal nuance and colour of Davis's forces or the idiomatic fluency of Dutoit's. Both in the first choral movement and in the finale its words are inexpressive, giving the impression of having been mechanically drilled (as for instance at ''Soudain pour respirer encor cet air qu'elle respire''); and in the revellers' chorus (which could have sounded more off-stage) and the vocal fugue part of Juliet's funeral cortege the voices tend to sing just on the underside of notes. So far as Romeo et Juliette is concerned, the Davis version still leads the field.
Recordings of the Nuits d'ete cycle have, for me, always been dominated, despite some rather slack accompanying by Ansermet, by Regine Crespin's superb Decca performance, with its touching tonal colourings and meaningful words. Dame Janet Baker on EMI sounds too self-conscious and, in places, coy; Bernadette Greevy's Chandos version is very fine (AB's mild doubts about some shrillness in her ''Villanelle'' may perhaps be attributed to the fact that she sings it in A major, a higher key than any of her rivals); but von Otter is even better. (For those interested in such things, she takes ''Villanelle'' in F and ''L'ile inconnue'' in E, like Baker; ''Au cimetiere'' in B flat, like Greevy; and ''Absence'' down in E flat.) More flexible in tempo, and in two songs—''Le spectre de la rose'' and ''Au cimetiere''—moving ahead more than the other artists, the effect she produces is wholly idiomatic. She shows a fine sense of phrase, and her tonal beauty is striking, with a magically hushed pianissimo in ''Au cimetiere'' and a lovely mezza voce in the last verse of ''Absence'' (where Greevy, ignoring the mf markings, uses this ravishing effect in each verse): in ''Sur les lagunes'' she invests the opening words ''Ma belle amie est morte'' with almost unbearable emotion. As with Crespin, the words ''mais ne crains rien'' in ''Le spectre de la rose'' are sensitively coloured, though she can't quite match Crespin's opulent tonal opening-up at ''J'arrive du paradis''. Levine's accompaniments are admirable, and his violins' skirls in ''L'ile inconnue'' are the cleanest of any.'