Yesterday my wife and I went to see Berlioz’s epic work Les Troyens based on Virgil’s Aeneid. It was the first time that either of us had ever seen the work produced. That shouldn’t be unexpected. Since the completion of the opera’s composition in 1858, it has only been produced 10 times in the United States and the present production marks the first time the work has been produced at Lyric Opera.
Les Troyens has been characterized as “the most important work in 19th century French opera”. I guess that depends on your operative definition of “important”. I think it disregards Bizet’s Carmen too casually. Offhand I would guess that at any given time there are probably 20 productions of Carmen being mounted somewhere in the world in stark contrast to the rarity of producing Les Troyens. Yes, Carmen is vulgar and tawdry, which may account for its popularity. We did not leave Les Troyens humming its tunes.
Les Troyens is grand opera in every sense. Its performances last five hours, nearly the equivalent of binge-watching a whole season of Orange Is the New Black. Its subject matter is monarchs, kingdoms, heroes, and gods. Its sentiments are mostly lofty. IMO it is probably the most important 19th century French opera seria. It is to some extent a throwback. If you tossed in some secco recitativo is could be mistaken for a late 18th century work.
The production is monumental. Its cast consists of 20 principals and major parts and an expanded chorus. The orchestra, too, is expanded—the work’s orchestration calls for an orchestra nearly twice the size of, say, Rigoletto—including “6 or 8 harps” and obscure instruments like saxhorns, antique sistrums, and tarbuka (a goblet drum).
Structurally, the work consists of a number of tableaux. Other than in the fifth act little action is portrayed on stage. The cast mostly sings about their emotional reactions to the events going on off-stage.
It takes place outside the walls of Troy, at the end of the siege and in the newly-built city of Carthage in North Africa. It spans a period of years. The work violates every principle of French drama (time, place, and subject).
Lyric’s production did great justice to the material. The set of the first three acts of the opera, set outside the walls of Troy, consisted of scorched concrete and twisted rebar and is pictured above. It made very good use of projected effects. The shadow of the Greeks’ horse pictured above made for a highly effective lighting effect.
The music was magnificent, the voices and orchestra in wonderful balance, complementing and reinforcing each other. Special note should be taken of Brandon Jovanovich, who did a very creditable job of singing Aeneas, an exacting and grueling tenor role.
All in all a very fine production at Lyric.
The Critics
At the Chicago Tribune John von Rhein declaims:
The stunning new production by British stage director Tim Albery met the inordinate requirements of Berlioz’s magnum opus with vigorous dramatic intelligence and spectacular but spare visual flair. A huge cast, strongly headed by Susan Graham as Queen Dido of Carthage, Brandon Jovanovich as the Trojan hero Aeneas and Christine Goerke as the Trojan Princess Cassandra, along with Lyric’s stalwart orchestra and chorus, met the daunting musical challenges head-on under that seasoned Berliozan, Lyric music director Andrew Davis. All the principal singers save for Graham were making their role debuts, and everybody came through impressively.
Up to now, local Berlioz fanatics had to content themselves with slim pickings from the “Troyens” table. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra ventured concert versions of both parts of the opera under James Levine at Ravinia in 1978. For later concert performances at Orchestra Hall, the CSO split the opera in two under Zubin Mehta’s baton, presenting “The Taking of Troy” in 2001, “The Trojans at Carthage” in 2002. Rumors of Lyric’s undertaking a complete, fully staged production floated around the grapevine for a while but came to naught.
For the record, the Albery production is entirely new and bears no relation to the much-praised “Troyens” he directed during the late 1980s and early ’90s for several leading British opera companies, including the Welsh National Opera when Lyric general director Anthony Freud was then at the helm. Lyric is presenting the five acts as three, with judicious musical trims bringing the running time to approximately five hours, including two intermissions.
No audience member who’s accustomed to sitting through the longer Wagner operas should have any problem with that, especially given the fact that there’s no letup in sweeping vitality, either in the pit or on the stage.
Albery’s aim clearly was to integrate the myriad elements to create an overarching sense of historic mission and personal moral struggle. In keeping with that intention, designer Tobias Hoheisel’s handsome, open set and modern costumes enforce continuity from the two acts set in besieged Troy to the three that take place in the newly built Carthage.
While at the Sun-Times Hedy Weiss observes:
Without hammering home the obvious similarities of “then†and “now,†the five-hour production of “Les Troyens†that opened Sunday in a new production and Lyric Opera of Chicago premiere, brings this ancient story to life with such compelling musical, dramatic and scenic brilliance that you might well leave the theater wishing Berlioz, who never lived to see his five act opera performed in its entirety, could be watching it from some “better place.â€
A massive undertaking, “Les Troyens†has been staged with superb clarity and emotional heat by British director Tim Albery, whose cast could not be more sublime. And it is buoyed continually by the exquisite work of the Lyric Opera orchestra under the masterful direction of Sir Andrew Davis, who brings the extraordinary beauty and fervor of Berlioz’s score to roaring life. The production also is a glorious showcase for the formidable voices and personalities of Lyric Opera’s grand chorus, led by chorus master Michael Black.
She goes on to describe the performance as a “once in a lifetime experience”.
Deanna Isaacs at Chicago Reader:
There are some issues. You can’t sign on for a five-hour performance and then complain about the length, but Berlioz’s libretto—he wrote his own, drawing on Virgil—is not consistently compelling. (The folks who could be seen bailing out during the second intermission, after a rather somnolent fourth act, missed performance highlights by Jovanovich and Graham in act five.) And Tobias Hoheisel’s spare, mostly gray sets and costumes (which seem to set the action in the 1940s) may be aiming for a film-noir effect, but are just unrelentingly drab. The major set component, a huge rotating shell that stands for both ancient cities, is as likely to bring to mind the oil-storage tanks of Gary, Indiana. Projections (water, fire, the shadow of a giant horse, and one that looks like it came from a planetarium show) don’t make up for the overall lack of visual interest. It’s a production drained of color, except where it’s most important—in the music.
And the music is great. All three of the internationally celebrated leads do justice to their difficult, high-voltage roles, as do the many featured singers, including, most notably, mezzo-soprano Okka von der Damerau as Dido’s sister, Anna. The Lyric Opera orchestra, led by music director Sir Andrew Davis, delivers every dramatic nuance of Berlioz’s beautiful score. And the real star of the show is the Lyric Opera chorus, under the direction of chorus master Michael Black. Doubled in size, it’s a magnificent vocal presence—from the opening scene of the Trojan masses to the stunned Carthaginians grouped around Dido’s pyre.
Lawrence A. Johnson at Chicago Classical Review:
Christine Goerke proved a solid Cassandra in her role debut, singing her warnings to the people of Troy fluently and idiomatically. Goerke’s expansive soprano sounded surprisingly slender at times, perhaps due in part to singing from the wall’s towering parapet. Considering the stakes for her city of Troy, one would have liked more dramatic bite and emotional intensity, with Goerke’s Cassandra too generalized and low-voltage.
With his belated entrance in Part One, Brandon Jovanovich as Aeneas injected some much-needed vitality into the proceedings. That set the stage for the move to Carthage in Part Two, where this Troyens improved markedly in most every way. Along with the ballet sequences, projections by Illuminos provided visual relief with ruins, forests and waterfalls breaking up the monotony of the barren city walls (the corny starry backdrop for the love duet not so much).
Most importantly, the singing really took flight with Susan Graham’s Dido and Jovanovich’s Aeneas providing most of the sparks.
concluding:
Even with low-energy stretches and a mixed staging, Berlioz’s Troyens is unlikely to come this way again anytime soon, and the opportunity to catch this show should not be missed.
