David McVicar’s production of Berlioz’s opera Les Troyens at the Royal Opera House last month was notable for several reasons. Firstly, stellar vocal performances from world-class lead singers; secondly, brilliant acting; thirdly, ravishing music; and lastly, a memorable set – including a curious giant horse and human made out of what looked like scrap weapons and tools. With two out of four absent for the eleventh concert in the 2012 Proms season, the prospect of a four-hour-plus performance, truly deserving of the label ‘epic’, was perhaps not ideal on a spectacular summer’s evening. It proved a slow-burner. Stripped down to as bare bones as possible with this work, which tells of the Trojans’ exit from Troy with a relatively straightforward plot compared to Virgil’s convoluted tale, the music itself shone. Meanwhile, the audience were left wondering why the dramatic pulse of the opera took so long to make an appearance.
Berlioz never saw his overture-less opera performed in his lifetime – this is unsurprising considering its logistical challenges and sheer length. It was perhaps a surprise that nothing had been cut from the score tonight. In the staged version, dancers had filled the balletic interludes in the score with some questionable choreography. Without them, the concert felt even longer; but at least here we could dwell on the score rather than working out the purpose of dancers.
The first two acts passed slowly. The only performance to write home about thus far – and what a performance it was – was Anna Caterina Antonacci’s stunning Cassandra. This was the turn of the night for sheer spine-tingling singing value. Antonacci’s rich soprano was suitably angst-ridden and full-bodied, but never reduced itself to wailing.
At this point, all the drama was in the score. The notoriously cavernous acoustic of such a vast arena played into the hands of the sizeable Royal Opera orchestra. They filled the corners of the Royal Albert Hall with Berlioz’s technicolour orchestration, sweeping as it does across so many emotions, compositional styles and influences. What registers are rhythmic motifs and snatches of melody which drive along compelling harmonic arcs. Here is another instance where one wonders what Berlioz would have achieved as a film composer. The imagination and musical breadth in his writing are superb, using every part of the orchestra to best effect.
During Acts I and II it felt odd to have so detailed a libretto. This reminded one of what we were missing in not having a full staging – it would perhaps have been most rewarding not to look at the stage, but to listen to the music while imagining the action as set out in the stage directions. As a minor illustrative point, take the moment when the noble Chorebus tries to persuade his lover Cassandra to cease her doom-laden predictions (always a losing battle) and her insistence that he leave. He pleads: ‘You must listen to me. I clasp your knees!’ At this point, the pair were at least a metre apart, singing eyes front out into the arena – and certainly nowhere near each others’ knees.