Symphonie Fantastique NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (68)
See it if You want to see a short show, no plot, just beautiful free form underwater puppetry. Perfect for a stoner! Lovely piano accompaniment.
Don't see it if If you expect some sort of plot or if you can’t be satisfied with fairly simple puppets. It’s gorgeous but seems rather small scale to me.
See it if Dreamy performance art. Creative combination of live music and underwater visuals.
Don't see it if Abstract art with no characters or story. I found my attention torn at times between the music & visuals.
See it if you're a fan of Basil Twist & Berlioz's Symphony, want to see a wild concept realized, curious about puppetry used to make abstract images
Don't see it if you are expecting a traditional style puppet show, not a fan of the abstract, not into color and light spectacles or plotless shows Read more
See it if you like unusual setting of music. Sit close so you can see what happens in the tank of water. Nice visual effects.
Don't see it if you like something with a plot. This is music and action in a tank of water. Read more
See it if the idea of beautiful piano music (Berlioz) accompanied by a lush, colorful visual score of nearly abstract shapes in motion appeals to you.
Don't see it if you need some plot with your theater—there is none here. Read more
See it if You love classical music and would be mesmerized by cool lighting and imaginative, abstract puppetry.
Don't see it if You fall asleep easily (it’s very soothing) or think you’re in for an evening of realistic, theatrical puppetry (it’s fabric in water).
See it if Hypnotic aquatic fantasia of billowing colourful scarves. Live piano accompaniment. Stay after to see how it's done. (60 min.)
Don't see it if Not Basil's best. Didn't like it 20 years ago, still don't. Front loader delicate cycle in darkness; bonus of cramped uncomfortable setting.
See it if Fun to watch the 55 min show with shapes moving around w/man playing piano. Take the free backstage tour afterward to see how it's all done!
Don't see it if You don't like walking backstage to spoil the "magic" of how this was done (but this was a really cool tour: line moves quickly!)
Critic Reviews (12)
"What you are watching never intrudes on or obscures what you are listening to; the discrete sensory experiences become, uncannily, one and the same...Mr. Twist’s rendering of Berlioz transcends such problems of representation. Instead, his terpsichorean feathers and fabrics hypnotize us into a state that approaches synesthesia, in which we seem to be hearing with our eyes, or seeing with our ears."
Read more
"Pure imagination...'Symphonie Fantastique' resists attempts to tack meaning onto its glorious unreason, making it still one of the most original things to come out of the New York theater two decades after it first emerged...With no characters, no story, and no recognizable symbols, 'Symphonie Fantastique' holds us transfixed...When so much theater in New York remains aggressively story-driven and rooted in realism, 'Symphonie Fantastique' dares to be different, and succeeds fantastically."
Read more
"HERE, the adventurous performing and visual arts institution, has brought back Basil Twist's hit 'Symphonie Fantastique' which was created at HERE in 1998. 'Symphonie Fantastique' is probably Twist's most famous and in-demand work, although he has produced better work, most particularly in partnership with Paula Vogel ('The Long Christmas Ride Home') and Joey Arias ('Arias with a Twist'), but judging from the sold-out house HERE's decision to revive it is warranted."
Read more
"Mr. O’Reily is a masterful performer, but I still missed the complex quality of sound required to experience the full effect of the symphony...The production does, however, preserve the essence of 'Symphonie Fantastique,' specifically in its relentless experimental spirit...Every single technical aspect of the show is impressive, but it does not seem to resonate with me beyond being an exciting way to experience Berlioz’s music."
Read more
"A unique journey...with a level of physicality so precise, you don't even see it...Inside a 1,000-gallon water tank, colors and shapes come alive as five unseen puppeteers move and manipulate objects of varying sizes...Set to the sonorous score of Berlioz's 'Symphonie Fantastique'...Gorgeous, eye-popping images. It's art in motion, performance art combined with music, visual art, and whimsy. And it is simply breathtaking."
Read more
"A team of five puppeteers...Don wetsuits and soar over the tank, dipping pieces of fabric, feathers, and tinsel in conversation with the music to create a complex, intricate choreography...A hypnotic, phantasmagorical display...Audiences can make of it whatever they like. They can choose to find a story, or they can simply sit back and enjoy it on a purely sensory level...A uniquely magical experience, one perhaps best consumed with a mind open to beauty for beauty's sake."
Read more
"Twist provides a remarkably well-crafted artistic creation. It also happens to be-I hate to say it-dramatically dull…In 'Symphonie Fantastique'…we discover how a variety of fabrics, feathers, and other items can be put to aesthetic use when manipulated under water, beautifully lit, and accompanied by powerful music…'Symphonie Fantastique' is either a piano concert accompanied by charmingly choreographed, abstract images, or vice-versa…It is, however, by no means a drame fantastique."
Read more
“Unique, dazzling, and entrancing theatrical encounter...An epic, five movement autobiographical meditation on the composer’s love obsession...A mélange of materials...all moving and swirling about, manipulated by five unseen puppeteers in ecstatic choreography...Trance-like aquatic dance exquisitely timed to Berlioz’s dynamic score, producing an effect at once whimsical and hallucinatory...Rarest of theatrical offerings...An exciting and original artistic achievement.”
Read more