It's one of the most famous, most studied, most archetypal passages in epic poetry: in Book I of Virgil's Aeneid, the Trojans, exhausted from their voyage and desolate at the loss of their city, gaze down on the city of Carthage as it rises from the African soil, its people scurrying like worker bees in their manifold tasks. It provided the high point in the Royal Opera's new staging of Berlioz's magnum opus Les Troyens last night: a brightly costumed chorus singing down from a terraced city carved into a red sandstone cliff, inspired by views of Morocco.
You get a lot of opera for your money in Les Troyens - a shade over four and a half hours of music plus an hour of intervals. If we're all being honest - and I feel the wrath of Berlioz's ghost breathing down my neck as I write this - you get two operas: a taut, dramatic two act piece about the fall of Troy itself, followed by a more elegiac three act piece telling the story of Dido and Aeneas in Carthage. Only the latter was performed in Berlioz's lifetime, the total work having been thought to be too unwieldy even by Berlioz's friends and admirers.
The initial two-act piece is told principally from the viewpoint of Cassandra, the prophetess doomed to be disbelieved. It makes for an interesting angle on a story where we all know what's going to happen, especially so because Anna Caterina Antonacci gave a blistering performance. Antonacci is a true dramatic soprano: she has both the stage presence and the vocal power needed to convey the sense of urgency and despair as Cassandra fails to convince anyone to do anything other than, ultimately, join her in suicide. Fabio Capitanucci gave us warmth and similar power as her betrothed Coroebus, and it was a shame that both characters had been killed off by the end of Act II.
The main role which spans both sections is that of Aeneas, sung by Bryan Hymel, called in to replace Jonas Kaufmann. Hymel is a fine lyric tenor, who sang beautifully in Inutiles regrets, the Act V aria in which Aeneas is being torn apart by the conflict between his love for Dido and his duty to go off to Italy and found Rome. But for the first four hours, I felt he was miscast. Aeneas is called upon to make huge, heroic entrances, dominating the stage: the role requires a the firepower of a Wagnerian heldentenor or something close to it, and Hymel simply didn't make an impact on that level.
The chosen period setting was in Berlioz's era (the programme notes show photos of the siege of Sebastopol in the Crimean War). Es Devlin's sets for Troy were grey and metallic; lighting was muted. It was all rather dingy: if you think that it's effective to mirror sad events by drabness of staging and lighting, you'll approve - it didn't do much for me. The Trojan Horse was suitably impressive, a massive fire-breathing scrap metal sculpture, although when it rocked to and fro as it was moved onto the stage, I was unable to suppress the uncharitable thought that it looked like a giant nodding dog.
Berlioz's music is full of interesting lines and bursts of orchestral colour. But for such a long evening, it felt rather disjointed: there seemed to be little sense of forward progression in the music or direction in the way it followed the drama - although, admittedly, it's the first time I've heard Les Troyens, so I may perhaps get a more integrated feel of the work on future listenings. The orchestra's performance, under the baton of Pappano, struck me as no more than workmanlike: there were plenty of good moments, but only a handful of occasions when I was really lifted out of my seat. It's a work that will be unfamiliar to most of the players, so I expect it will improve as the run proceeds. It improved through the evening, and the music to the great Act IV love duet was stirring.