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Arma virumque cano.

Hector Berlioz: Les Troyens, The Met in HD, Phoenix Picturehouse, Oxford, 9 January 2013.

Hector Berlioz’ great operatic masterpiece Les Troyens has its inspiration in the Aeneid of Virgil. Its two parts, La Prise de Troie and Les Troyens á Cartage form a worthy and fitting tribute from the composer-librettist to the poet of whose work he was a lifelong admirer. Such is the scale of the work and so demanding of resources that few companies can present it. For example, only Part 2 was performed during the composer’s lifetime. It was not until 1969 that the uncut version in French was given in London. Although there were two concert performances at The New York Metropolitan in 1894, it was not performed there until 1973, since when it has received 52 performances. The present production by Francesca Zambello dates from 2003. I first saw the opera at Covent Garden in 1972 with Colin Davis conducting Josephine Veasey as Cassandra, Janet Baker Dido and Jon Vickers Aeneas and again in a very fine concert performance at the Barbican in 2000 with Davis conducting Petra Lang, Michelle de Long and Ben Heppner. The 1969 production was the basis for the LP recording, much loved and studied. I last saw it at Paris Bastille in 2006 in a bare symbolic setting, a revival of a 2000 Salzburg production. Deborah Polanski dominated the performance combining the two female roles with Jon Villars as Aeneas.

My reason for giving this introduction is to give weight to an argument that the best way to experience this particular music drama is to see it in the cinema in HD transmission. As has now been established, this new medium, at its best, has much to offer to compensate for what is missing – the atmosphere of live performance in the opera house. The heart of opera is the thrill of hearing naked voices riding over an orchestra to fill the auditorium with sound, sharing the experience with an audience of at most a few thousand. But there can be few opera lovers who have not gained new insights into details of dramatic development and characterisation live in high definition transmission in the company of a quarter of a million viewers around the world. Even the intermission interviews, cheesy though they often are, add something to the enjoyment of the occasion by teaching us of the singer’s point of view and the challenges of the staging.

Wagner is a special case. His works are, as they are known, Music Dramas. The drama is in the music and the singing, leaving a large vacuum to be filled by the staging. Conventionally Wagner’s own stage directions are ignored, replaced by whatever bee the director has in his bonnet. These are therefore often innately unsuitable for HD transmission, better to listen with one’s eyes shut. The future of video transmission of Wagner hangs on the new Met production of Parsifal to be shown on 2 March.

Why is Les Troyens (completed two years before Tristan und Isolde) so different? The answer must be that here the vocal line and the music are directed to driving forward the unfolding drama, rather than getting inspiration from looking back on what has already gone. In Berlioz, the live sound becomes less important than the content. Part 1 takes over where Homer’s Iliad ends. Homer is already dead. The Greeks appear to have gone, leaving behind the wooden horse which the Trojan populace, ignoring Cassandra’s warnings, take as a gift from the gods even when it discharges two serpents to devour Laocoön and his sons. Once inside the city the Greeks emerge, overwhelm the Trojans; most of the women, following Cassandra; choose death rather than dishonour. Aeneas and his followers escape, urged on by the ghost of Hector to cries of Italie! and the triumphal Trojan March. In Part 2 the Trojans have arrived in Carthage in time to help Queen Dido see off Numidian invaders. A celebratory hunt is interrupted by a storm, sheltering from which Dido and Aeneas discover their love .and engage in a coital embrace, depicted in music and ballet. Aeneas is reminded by his ghosts of his mission to travel to Italy. Choosing duty before love, he abandons Dido who, with the help of her sister Anna and adviser Narbal, constructs her funeral pyre.

The vividness of the plot to us today is the reminder that not much has changed in Mediterranean countries over the millennia: refugees escaping massacre in their own country arrive as illegal immigrants in another where defence cuts following previous victories have left it defenceless against invaders. Having helped their hosts, the refugees move on to new pastures. Each of the performances I have seen has left enduring memories of particular scenes. From Colin Davis, the set dominated in the first Part by four pillars representing the legs of the Horse, the amazing tension built up during Hector’s call to arms and Janet Baker’s portrayal of Dido; from the Bastille, Deborah Polanski’s tour de force in performing both roles, the poignant handling of the Trojan women and the final scene with Dido, Anna and Narbal – a production seriously marred by the video projection of scenes of bombing during the Storm. 

From this Met production, credit must first go to the conductor Fabio Luisi for producing such an unfaltering stream of glorious sound to support the voices. Deborah Voigt played Cassandra, as she has many times from the first in this production in 2003; she is good, particularly in her dialogues with Coroebus (Dwayne Croft) but self-admittedly not completely at ease in French opera. Indeed the lack of a genuine French timbre to the vocal sound was a general feature. Susan Graham was Dido, a performance which might have gained top marks were it not for the memory of Janet Baker. The Aeneas of the young tenor Bryan Hymel, coming into the production at a late stage, came over as a pleasant young man, maybe a bit lacking in heroic charisma but a convincing lover. The Anna of Karen Cargill was another treat but the sensation was Korean bass Kwangchul Youn as Narbal both for his acting and singing. He also sang the role in the Bastille production equally impressively It is surprising that this role is not mentioned in his online CV.

The visual experience was equally absorbing for the cinema audience. It, held the attention up by judicious use of camera movement from close up to long shot adding to the tension and dramatic development in the crowd scenes, though, as I have noted previously, the Met Chorus is too large, crowding the stage, preventing the fluidity of movement for a full contribution. On the other hand, the ballet in both choreography and execution was superb, completely in style, reminding us, in the Storm scene of Berlioz’ acknowledged debt to Gluck.

Zambello’s direction is a worthy and fitting tribute to the composer of this unique operatic masterpiece. (I echo the words of the opening paragraph deliberately.) The attention is held unflaggingly for the five and a half hours’ duration. For the cinema audience it is a complete and satisfying audio-visual experience.

13 January 2013

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