Twenty-one singers in the Vienna State Opera’s cast list, two large choruses, three ballet ensembles, a five hour experience: when you talk about Les Troyens, you’re talking about obsession with size – but how else is one supposed to do Virgil’s Aeneid?
With Les Troyens, Berlioz has undoubtedly created the most monumental of Grands opéras, but it would be wrong to reduce the work to its dimensions: The Fall of Troy, followed by the tragic love story of Dido and Aeneas, isn’t something you can tell in a one act drama. Anyway, for all his megalomania, Berlioz had an eye for detail. He had a passion for this material and expressed it in his own words and ecstatic music, with orchestration that’s dense but never bombastic or overblown. Les Troyens exists dramatically, and even more so musically, as brilliantly exciting contrasts: the use of the unexpected and the confrontation between different moods, translated into rhythm, melody and timbre, are irresistible.
The work begins with the Trojans’ joy at the apparent end of the ten years of war with Greece, contrasted with Cassandra’s dire premonitions, which are believed by no-one, not even her lover Chorebus. For just a moment, on hearing of the death of Laocoon, who had warned about the Trojan Horse, the people are unsure. With this, embodied by the chorus in “mystérieuse horreur”, the first act already hits an impressive climax. Famously, everyone – including the hero Aeneas – misinterprets the meaning of Laocoon’s death, and their fate is sealed by the entrance of the famous horse into the city. (Set designer Es Devilin built the horse from war relics and lights it from the inside).
The second act consists of scenes from the last hours of Troy. In the finale, Cassandra convinces many Trojan women to join her in suicide and thus escape the arms of the enemy. Inevitably, one thinks about Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, written 100 years later, and is equally shocked.
David McVicar’s staging is tried and tested: it’s a bought-in production that first saw the light at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The work is shown the way it is, with visuals reminiscent of war films and gladiator movies. Some of the 19th century costumes are opulent. Even the Staatsoper’s large stage would be tight for so many performers, so Devlin builds upwards, and uses the vertical dimension in service of the work: when at Aeneas’ departure from Carthage, the smashed miniature model of the city leans towards water (only hinted at) and the ropes of the Trojan ships (again only hinted at) are untied, the symbolism is strong.
At the première, Monika Bohinec impressed as Cassandra. She was brought in as a late replacement for the indisposed Anna Caterina Antonacci, but she looked solid throughout and breathed life into the lonely despair of the misunderstood princess. As Chorebus, Adam Platchetka was not in his top form, but the house début of the Austrian-New Zealander bass Anthony Robin Schneider was convincing. As the ghost of Hector, he grabs the great Aeneas by the neck and leads him on a divine mission: he is to found a new Troy in Italy.