Berlioz The Trojans Prom 11

Berlioz The Trojans (Les Troyens) came to BBC Prom 11 barely two weeks aftere its sell-out run at the Royal Opera House. This made a difference because all involved were still so fresh that the concert performance had the energy of true theatre, but without the constraints of staging.

By the time Troy falls, Virgil tell us that the hero Aeneas (Enée), has already had many adventures, with Gods and monsters. In this painting (Tiepolo), Enée introduces his son to a very un-Mediterranean Dido (Didon). The kid's wearing wings because a goddess has turned him into Cupid to break down Didon's vow of celibacy. Antonio Pappano's approach thus captures the adventure that characterized Enée's past. The Trojans can be done as a formal studio recording, but it's much more idiomatic when imbued with this innate sense of theatre. Pappano and his orchestra have already proven themselves at the Royal Opera House. Now they can, like Enée, take more risks. If anything, this Proms performance was freer, more spontaneous and closer to the spirit of Berlioz's audacious vision.

Significantly, Berlioz eschews the full Aenied saga. The scenes in Troy have such cataclysmic drama that they almost overwhelm, but they set out the background to what Berlioz is much more focussed upon. Didon, Enée and their people are refugees from different destroyed civilizations who meet in a place of temporary refuge. With his ability to write flamboyant pictures of excess, he throws us off balance by concentrating on the relationship between the two main characters. It may seem like an anticlimax to hear Didon (Eva Maria Westbroek) sing happily with her contented subjects, but Berlioz is deliberately creating a contrast between militarist warfare and domestic peace. Having lost Tyre, the people of Carthage are grateful for what they'e achieved. Didon is not Cassandre, but almost her opposite. Anna Maria Antonacci is a more "dramatic" singer, but Westbroek's warmth is exactly what makes Carthage so alluring to the dispossessed Trojans. Performance doesn't exist in limbo but grows from interpretation.

Didon and Enée are driven from the hunt by a storm, but it's not the storm that matters but the calm haven within which they shelter and fall in love. The duet Nuit d'ivresse is at the heart of the opera in many ways. Again, intimacy and understatement mean more than showily extravagant singing. All theur lives, these two have lived for the public, so to speak. At last, under cover of night, they can be themselves. Bryan Hymel's Enée is a good counterpart to Westbroek's Didon because they create the parts with such sincerity. Empires and glory have nothing on love, so the emphasis here is on naturalness, not histrionics.  The greater spontaniety of the Proms performance caused a slight wobble in Hymel's long  Inutiles regrets, but it added to character. Enée's heart breaks at the prospect of leaving Didon, but it is the crucial, soaring climaxes that show his resolve. Hymel sang this with flawless poise, faced as heroically as Enée faces his fate. Hymel is only 32, with great potential. Most of this cast are very young indeed, and enthusiastic, which gives this production its vigour.

Berlioz writes many vignettes into The Trojans to display his virtuosic command of form. In concert performance, continuity is less important, so we can indulge in the vignettes for their own sake. Ji-min Park's O blonde Cérès was magical,  and  Ed Lyon sang Hylas's Vallon sonore so movingly that I thought of the Steersman in the Flying Dutchman. Also firmly portayed, Hanna Hipp's Anna and Jihoon Kim's Hector. In the interludes for ballet, Berlioz demonstrates how he can write exotic, pastoral and orientalist portraits. Pappano and the orchestra delineated these vividly, showing how important they are to the fabric of the opera. Having heard this Les Troyens live on stage, in film and in concert, I'm convinced that this is one to cherish. It's human scale, not bombast, its warmth and naturalism informed by its insight into the meaning of the opera. True, this is an epic tragedy, but it wouldn't be quite as poignant if we didn't empathize with the personalities. Please read my review of the ROH performance, and the film broadcast - all different. See here in Opera Today for the synopsis, libretto and a non commercial stream conducted by Sylvian Cambreling.

Berlioz The Trojans BROADCAST analyzed

Hector Berlioz Les Troyens (The Trojans) is available from 9th July, online, on demand, free and internationally until October HERE on thespace.org.  Live opera and filmed opera are completely different, complementary experiences. Live, the David McVicar production was what the French call a spectacle, created to stun. On film, directed by François Roussillon, it reveals extra subtleties not visible on stage.

Always, I think, judge a production by how it reflects the composer and his ideas. So David McVicar's decision to set the opera in Berlioz's time absolutely connects to Berlioz and his times. Under Napolean , France conquered Europe. Under Napolean III, France was building an empire all over the world. This was a time of grand visions. So Berlioz is channelling the spirit of the times, creating an opera he hoped would outdo anyone else in sheer scale and audacity.

Hence the panoramic sweep, and the cornucopia of ideas in the opera. Just as Mahler would later speak of "a world in a symphony", Berlioz is creating a world in an opera. Hence the extremes, and the flaws. But that's what the world is like, it's not meant to be perfect. When we listen to Les Troyens, we should be listening to what Berlioz was trying to achieve, and the context of his work. The extravagance of this staging reflects the extrvagance, even the vulgarity, in the opera itself. It's not surprising that he never heard Les Troyens in full performance. Even by the standards of the time it was a blockbuster of cinematic scale. And after the war of 1870 and the Paris Commune, would audiences want to reminded of empires destroyed?  Understand McVicar's concept of the Second Empire and its analogy with the Trojans, and this production shows its intellectual depth. (It's certainly not just about the Crimean war as some suggest).

The opera happens on two continents, in Troy and in Carthage. The dichotomy is significant, in terms of style as well as in narrative. Which part means more in terms of the opera? In the first part, the Trojans rejoice, but are annihilated because they believe in the Horse. Thus the Horse as theatrical device is meant to shock and awe, and breathe fire. It's a symbol of war. Yet it's not just a machine. Wars are created by people. So the Horse here moves like a living being, and at the end, the figure of a mechanical man is seen, a silhouette of the  Horse in the background.

 In the scenes in Troy, Berlioz goes for big effects. Cassandre dominates because only she can see what fate has in store. It's a role meant to be done with exaggerated histrionics, because that's in keeping with the heightened madness of the events. Some have commented on Anna Caterina Antonacci's semaphore acting, but I think it's appropriate. Berlioz wrote extremes into the vocal part, partly to counteract the tumult behind, but also, being a canny operator, he must have known that audiences go in for that sort of excess. There is no need for Antonacci to engage emotionally with the role as long as she projects it in extreme high relief.  Rather like the stylized depictions in Greek art. When Énée appears, he's automatically upstaged, by the turbulence around him and by the sight of Hector covered in blood. Good singing from Jihoon Kim, considering he's rolling on the ground.  I think Berlioz wants this because it emphasizes just how important the role is going to become later. The First Act is fantastic theatre, but what really counts in this opera is what happens to Énée after Troy is destroyed and the Trojans are forced to roam the Mediterranean as refugees. 

After the bombast of the First Act, Berlioz is deliberately shifting gears. That's why Didon is written as a kind of Earth Mother, beloved by her nation because she's benevolent. Someone said to me that  Eva-Maria Westbroek doesn't  look Lebanese (where Tyre was), but so what? She's meant to be a contrast to the harrowed Vestal Virgin Cassandre. She has loved before and is mature. The gentleness in the part doesn't grab the audience by the throat as Cassandre's part does, but that's the point. Film brings out the graciousness in Westbroek's singing, and redresses the imbalance created by the two disparate parts of the opera.

Ultimately, Les Troyens predicates on how the two central characters relate to each other against a background of tragedy. The Trojans are dispossessed, and the Carthaginians threatened by the Numidians. Nothing is stable, even if Carthage is prosperous for the present.

After the bombastic extremes of the First Act, which are necessary to the plot,  we're conditioned to expect more of the same later, but is that what Berlioz wanted? Énée is a hero, so we expect action man histrionics. But let's not forget that Didon was a refugee too, and won't be fooled by fake heroics. "Je suis Énée", sings Bryan Hymel,  but as he recounts the sufferings of his people, he expresses the human face of the tragedy.  Énée wins Didon's heart because he's sincere, a good father and a sensitive man.  Because Westbroek and Hymel create their roles with such sensitivity, their Nuit d'ivresse is exquisitely beautiful. The set transforms into night sky, the city of Carthage revolving like a distant planet. The exotic colours are picked up by Antonio Pappano and the ROH orchestra. Truly memorable and intimate. 
 
Flashy singing and acting might impress audiences on a superficial level, but Hymel's interpretation is much more psychologically correct. On film, we see tiny, subconcious movements which reflect the subtle vocal inflections. No director can teach a singer such detail. Hymel has  internalized the part on a very deep level. On the first night, everyone was thinking Jonas Kaufmann, and Hymel seemed to be pushing his natural timbre lower, possibly without realizing it. Besides, audiences nowadays aren't as used to high voiced heroes as was the case in Berlioz's time. French opera favours these voices, but we're also more used to German or Italian norms. On this film, made ten days later, he's settled better into the part which suits his tessitura well. He's done Énée before, and he's still only 32. Lots of potential. Listen to his long soliloquy where he prepares himself for his farewell. Technically this is difficult enough, but Hymel expresses Énée's inner conflict perceptively. Énée is a real hero because he confronts fate, knowing it will break his heart, and Didon's too. Listen for that final, heart rending flourish when he leaves. Berlioz lets Énée depart a warrior. "Italie! Italie!".

As for the final image when the figure of a man appears in the backgroiund, a silhouette of the Horse behind him, it derives straight from Berlioz's stage directions. "On voit passer devant le Capitole un guerrier couvert d’une armure éclatante conduisant des légions romaines". The hero will die but he will help found the Roman Empire. Carthage and Rome will fight, both eventually blitzed by history, as Troy was.

The ballet sequences on stage dragged, but the fault isn't so much with  the production as with our modern assumptions of what opera should be. The 19th century public didn't know or much care what North Africa was really like. For them orientalist fantasy reinforced their image of themselves as conquerors.  McVicar and his team are giving us the "real" Berlioz. It's we who have to adjust to the alien, instead of imposing our own wishes.  Which is the very nature of Imperialism. This Berlioz The Trojans, with its awareness of the hubris of Empire, is extremely deep, but you have to respect it on its own terms. Which is why you need to hear this broadcast.

Please also see my review of the first night HERE. There's a link to Opera Today's review HERE and a link to the libretto and free download (Cambreling, Paris 2006) HERE. 


photo : Bill Cooper, details embedded.

Les Troyens online, but the real story is the medium

From tomorrow 5th July, the Royal Opera House Berlioz Les Troyens will be available live, then available online and on demand until late October, after which cinema screenings start and presumably a DVD release will follow. And for free, too, if you pay UK TV licence fees. In the rest of Europe, it will be available on Arte TV. It will be available internationally from Monday 9th July on http://thespace.org/  HERE is a link to my analysis ofthe film.

Rarely has any ROH production been given such  exposure. My review is HERE. But even more significant is the medium through which the broadcast will be delivered. It's a new website thespace.org, a joint creation of the BBC, The Arts Council of England, the British Film Institute and various different partners.  In Europe, comprehensive website broadcasting like this isn't new, Mezzo.tv and Arte.tv and Medici.tv have been around for ages. But there hasn't beem any similar site in the UK. So the potential for thespace.org is huge. It reaches far beyond the BBC. Sadler's Wells, the Globe Theatre, the BFI, art galleries etc can participate, creating a huge umbrella for the arts of all kinds. Strength in numbers, economies of scale. I don't know if thespace is experimental or permanent but it's a good idea. It could be a treasure trove. If the French and Germans can do such things, why can't we?

At the moment there isn't a lot of content, though there's masses and masses of Shakespeare, not only from the Globe Theatre but also international productions and a rare 1910 silent film of King Lear, painstakingly hand-tinted. The BBC's archives will be available. At present there's a very well made film-length documenatry called From the Sea to the Land Beyond, using historic footage of British life.  Highly recommended.  More to come, as well, like John Peel's sound archive and broadcasts from festivals. The problerm is that much of the content seems to have been written by technology geeks, so there's little consistency in what's being offered. Perhaps it's early days, but the possibilities are vast. From a business, legal and political perspective, there all kinds of angles and complications. But vision was never easy.

Then  there's the problem of public perception. Remember the hysteria when it was claimed that we couldn't see Britten's War Requiem  at Coventry Cathedral ? Since it was available as normal on i-player what was the fuss about? And it was live on thespace and is still available online for the foreseeable future. I-player generally has a 7 day limit, thespace seems indefinite. But maybe it's a British tradition to moan and whine, whatever happens. So you need a TV licence? That's the law. So you have to pay for viewing from Arte? So what, it's cheaper than travelling. At the end of the day, no broadcast is ever the same as the live experience. Everyone seems to want everything free, but the arts are not cheap to produce, and audiences should take some responsibility. In Europe. we're lucky. We could be stuck with the US model.

Sensational Berlioz Les Troyens, Royal Opera House

Sensational Berlioz Les Troyens at the Royal Opera House. Berlioz, who understood theatrical gestures so well, builds his opera around the most audacious dramatic device in ancient history: the Trojan Horse. The population of Troy delights in the spectacle, but then all hell breaks loose and the city is destroyed. David McVicar's new production is similarly audacious. The orchestra roars full tilt. Even the instrumentation is extravagant - the ophicleide wails like a strange monster. Then the Horse looms into view, moving in a surprisingly realistic way. its eyes shining as if the creature were alive, which adds a poignant twist.

The Greeks and Trojans had much in common with the age of Napoleon III.  David McVicar and his team  (Es Devlin, Moritz Junge, Wolgang Göbbel), brilliantly captiure the expansive, extravagant spirit of Berlioz's time. France at its imperial peak, colonizing Africa and Asia. Paris was being rebuilt on a grand scale. Berlioz wasn't doing history re-enactment but writing to stun Paris with its audacity. His orchestration isn't the music of antiquity, but the most advanced and adventurous of its time. Berlioz isn't doing history re-enactment, and his audiences interpreted Virgil through the filters of Claude and Poussin.

Grecian pottery depicts figures with  minimal background: in Berlioz, the background is extreme and densely textured. The principals and secondary parts have to be strongly cast to stand out.  Berlioz writes psychological depth in the music rather than in the text, so a strong casting and good direction are of the essence. At The Royal Opera House, the singing and acting was superb, thus expanding the spirit of the roles for maximum dramatic impact.

Anna Caterina Antonacci created the part of Cassandre with John Eliot Gardiner in Paris in 2003. She's pitted, alone, against the hysteria in the chorus, and the militaristic violence in the orchestra, but her voice holds its own and soars through with dark intensity. Cassandre and Chorèbe (Fabio Capitanucci) are counterparts to Didon and Énée, but Eva-Maria Westbroek's Didon and Bryan Hymel's Enée were more than a match for the sheer passion of their characterization.

Eva-Marie Westbroek sang Cassandre in the Amsterdam Les Troyens in 2011 (Pierre Audi). She's also a natural for the warm, happy Didon we see in Carthage (the desert city brilliantly depicted in multi dimensions so we get a sense of its teeming activity). This throws her portrayal of Didon's extreme grief  into sharp relief. When Westbroek sings of her anguish, the set is bare but for blue-grey curtain, the staging speaking for her as much as the orchestration. Westbroek's such a sympathetic Didon, we feel her agony.

Bryan Hymel sang Énée in the Amsterdam production last year, and brings experience to the role. Anyone who bought tickets expecting Jonas Kaufmann would not have been disappointed. If anything, Hymel's bright lyric tenor suits the part better. In the duet "Nuit d’ivresse et d’extase infinie!"  he conveyed such beauty and sensitivity that he fleshed out the action man hero side of Énée, and the role became a real personality. Hymel's Farewell aria was stunning,  and ended with an exuberant flourish that was both heroic and tragic. The audience burst into spontaneous applause for the first time. Some audiences clap at anything, but this audience was far more sophisticated. You don't do a demanding five-hour opera unless you really care. Hymel is still only 32, and has years of potential ahead.

Brindley Sherratt's Nabal was powerful, setting the opera in context. Duty, fate and tragedy, love cannot compete except in death. Also outstanding was Ji-min Park as Iopas, singing the plangently lovely "O Blonde Cérès". Park is only two years out of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme but a singer who should go far. Indeed, all the singing and acting was top notch, the entire cast on message, the chorus well blocked and expressive.

Coming from a background in Berlioz songs, I can't bear the bombast some like in Les Troyens, but Antonio Pappano's approach is more perceptive. He understand that what makes this opera work is its variety. Berlioz is flashing his virtuosity. The carnage music must be strident, but Berlioz writes music of surprising delicacy, and even humour. Pappano characterized the ballet scenes sensitively. These are important, not mere filler, for they set the context of the opera. Berlioz's Paris audiences would have liked this exotic orientalism had they heard it, for it fitted their image of themselves as rulers of North Africa and beyond. Wisely, McVicar and his team used the exotic theme in the set, where the "world" (ie the model of Carthage) floats in a magical cosmos of blue, green and red light, illuminated by stars. Perfect union of music, staging and meaning.

This Berlioz Les Troyens is an experience no-one should miss. Alas,  performances are sold out solid and you might have to pay way over the odds to get in. Luckily, it's being filmed and will be in cinemas in November and hopefully out on DVD. it's a milestone for the Royal Opera House and they'd be mad not to revive it soon.View it LIVE on mezzoTV on 5th July here  and hear it at the BBC Proms (unstaged)  from 22nd July.

A more formal review with full cast list is here in Opera Today. Please see the Opera Today download of Sylvain Cambreling's 2006 Paris performance HERE (not commercially available) with libretto (not the Bärenreiter edition used in London)

HERE is a link to the online, international, free stream broadcast of the 5th July performance, with my review of the film version. 
Photos copyright Bill Cooper, details embedded.

Berlioz Les Troyens free Download

Hector Berlioz Les Troyens opens Monday at the Royal Opera House. Listen here for to a download of a live performance in 2006 at Opéra Bastille Paris, from Opera Today.  Synopsis included and a link to the libretto. Deborah Polaski sings Kassandra and Dido, Jon Villars sings Enée, and the coonductror is Sylvain Cambreling. This is interesting because it is different to the 2000 Salzburger Festspiele performance available on DVD. Kwangchul Youn sings Narbal, for example, and Chorèbe is Franck Ferrari. On the strength of this 2006 performance I bought the DVD, to see how Herbert Wernicke directed it. Rather effectively, I thought, with intense "Mediterranean" light.
photo: Bibi Saint-Pol