Part I "La Prise de Troie" was first performed in Karlsruhe on 6 December 1890.
Part II "Les Troyens à Carthage" was first performed in Paris on 4 November 1863.
The entire opera was first performed over two nights in Karlsruhe on 6 & 7 December 1890.
CAST
Énée [Aeneas], Trojan hero, son of Venus and Anchises 
- Gregory Kunde
Cassandre [Cassandra], Trojan prophetess, Priam's daughter - Anna Caterina Antonacci
Didon [Dido], Queen of Carthage, widow of Sichée [Sychaeus] the Prince of Tyre - Susan Graham
Anna, Dido's sister - Renata Pokupić
Chorèbe [Coroebus], Asian prince, betrothed to Cassandra - Ludovic Tézier
Panthée [Panthous], Trojan priest, friend of Aeneas - Nicolas Testé
Narbal, minister to Dido - Laurent Naouri
Iopas, Tyrian poet to Dido's court - Mark Padmore
Ascagne [Ascanius], 15-year-old son of Aeneas - Stéphanie d'Oustrac
Hylas, a young Phrygian sailor - Topi Lehtipuu
Priam, King of Troy - René Schirrer
Hécube [Hecuba], Queen of Troy - Danielle Bouthillon
Polyxène [Polyxena], Cassandra's sister - Frances Jellard
Hélénus, a Trojan priest, Priam's son - Topi Lehtipuu
Ghost of Hector, Priam's eldest son - Fernand Bernadi
Mercure [Mercury] - René Schirrer
A Greek Chieftain - Robert Davies
Two Trojan Soldiers - Laurent Alvaro / Nicolas Courjal
A Priest of Pluto - Laurent Naouri
Andromaque [Andromache], Hector's widow - Lydia Koniordou (silent role)
Astyanax, her 8-year-old son - Quentin Gac (silent role)
Chœur du Théâtre du Châtelet
Directed by Yannis Kokkos
Sung in French with English subtitles
Recorded at the Théâtre Musical de Paris/Châtelet in October 2003
SYNOPSIS
Preface by Hugh Macdonald
Berlioz composed Les Troyens towards the end of his life, drawing on Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid, which he had admired since his childhood. In his Memoirs he recounts how his father, a country doctor, read Virgil to him and how the story of Dido's tragic fate reduced him to tears which he tried hard to conceal. When he was in Italy in 1831-32 he thought often about Virgil and visited places with Virgilian associations. Twenty years later he began to plan a grand opera, intended for the Paris Opera, which included scenes showing the sack of Troy after ten years of war and the later story of Aeneas and his band of Trojans seeking refuge from a storm on the shores of Carthage, Dido's realm. Ultimately Aeneas is compelled to abandon Dido since Destiny requires him to found the great city of Rome, leaving Dido to her self-immolation.
Such a plan required great fortitude, for Berlioz had become disillusioned with the state of music in France and was certain that his work would never be played there. It was only the unexpected success of L’Enfance du Christ in 1854 which persuaded him that he should undertake it.
Withdrawing from almost all his concert commitments in France and abroad, he embarked on the opera in April 1856, writing the libretto himself. As soon as the libretto was finished he composed the love duet in Act 4, “Nuit d’ivresse et d’extase infinie”, and then devoted the next two years to the composition of the rest, five acts in all.
The score was finished in April 1858, but he was unable to persuade the Paris Opera to mount it (his earlier opera Benvenuto Cellini had been a failure there in 1838), and eventually he agreed to allow the last three acts to be performed under the title Les Troyens à Carthage. This took place at the Theatre Lyrique, an enterprising but ill-equipped theatre, in November 1863, and although it was much admired, there were no more performances before Berlioz’s death in 1869.
Berlioz also allowed the vocal score to be published as two separate operas, the first two acts being named La Prise de Troie, and since that time it has often been argued that it is two operas, not one. The first performance of the complete opera took place in Karlsruhe in 1890, split into two evenings, and productions today continue the practice. During Europe's long obsession with Wagner, Berlioz's greatest work was set aside and was widely thought to be unperformable. But it is important to recognize that Berlioz was composing in the long tradition of French grand opera, and that long five-act operas had been played in Paris for many years. Meyerbeer’s works were the obvious precedent. But Berlioz was reaching back to Gluck and Spontini as dramatic models, for these are the composers whose works he most admired when he first arrived in Paris in the 1820s. He also felt strongly that Shakespeare's poetic spirit had inspired him - he even adapted some lines from The Merchant of Venice for the love duet in Act 4.
The complete opera was first staged as a single work in 1957 (at Covent Garden, London), and the full score was first published in 1969 (New Berlioz Edition). The present score is based on that edition, and it includes in an appendix two scenes which were omitted from Berlioz’s final plan. In Act 1, after the appearance of Andromache and her son, there is a scene for the Greek spy Sinon, which Berlioz later removed, although its text helps to explain some of the action. The original ending of the opera included a pageant of the future glory of Rome of which traces are still to be found in the final version. The duet for Dido and Aeneas, “Errante sur tes pas”, was a late addition to the opera. Other alternative texts and cuts are set out in full in Volume 2c of the New Berlioz Edition.
On 3 May 1861 Berlioz wrote in a letter: “I am sure that I have written a great work, greater and nobler than anything done hitherto.” Elsewhere he wrote: “The principal merit of the work is, in my view, the truthfulness of the expression.” For Berlioz the truthful representation of passion was the highest goal of a dramatic composer, and in this respect he felt he had equalled the achievements of Gluck and Mozart. In the history of French music, Les Troyens stand out as a grand opera that avoided the shallow glamour of Meyerbeer and Halévy, but therefore paid the price of long neglect. In our own time the opera has finally come to be seen as one of the greatest operas of the 19th century.
PART I - LA PRISE DE TROIE - 10 MAY 2006
ACT 1
After ten years of siege by the Greeks, the Trojans rejoice at the prospect of peace. They marvel at the gigantic wooden horse the Greeks left behind as an offering to Pallas Athena. King Priam's daughter Cassandra, a prophetess, looks for the significance behind the Greeks' disappearance. In a moment of revelation, she saw her brother Hector's ghost on the ramparts and has tried unsuccessfully to warn her father and Coroebus, her fiancée, of further calamities. When Coroebus begs her to join the celebrations, she urges him to flee the city, because she foresees death for both of them. Aeneas, leader of the Trojan army, enters with a group offering thanks to the gods. A somber note is introduced when Andromaque, Hector's widow, brings her son Astyanax to King Priam and Queen Hecuba. Aeneas reports that the priest Laocoön, suspecting the wooden horse to be some kind of a trick, threw his spear at it and urged the crowd to set fire to it, whereupon two sea serpents devoured him. Aeneas proposes they make amends to Athena by bringing the horse into the city as a holy object. As the Trojan march sounds in the distance and the horse is hauled closer, Cassandra realizes it bears disaster.
ACT 2
Aeneas, asleep in his room, is visited by the ghost of Hector, who tells him to escape, since his destiny is to found an empire that someday will rule the world. As the ghost disappears, Aeneas's friend Panthée rushes in, wounded, to report that Greek soldiers emerged from the horse and are devastating Troy. Aeneas hastens to lead the defense forces.
In the king's palace, Trojan women pray for deliverance from the invaders. Cassandra foretells that Aeneas and some of the Trojans will escape to Italy to build Rome - a new Troy. Coroebus is dead, and Cassandra prepares for her own death, asking the women whether they will submit to rape and enslavement. Some are afraid of death; driving these away, the others take up their lyres and repeat their vow to die free. Greek soldiers, entering in search of state treasure, are aghast at the sight of the women's mass suicide. Aeneas and his men have escaped with the treasure.
PART II - LES TROYENS À CARTHAGE - 7 JUNE 2006
ACT 3
In a gallery of the palace of Dido, Queen of Carthage, her subjects hail her with an anthem. She reminds them that in only seven years, since they had to flee from Tyre, they have built a flourishing new kingdom. Her sister, Anna, assures Dido, who is a widow, that one day she will be able to love again. When Iopas, the court poet, announces visitors who have narrowly escaped shipwreck in a recent storm, Dido welcomes them. They are the remnants of the Trojan army, asking a few days' hospitality en route to Italy and offering Dido what is left of their treasure. When word reaches Dido that the Numidian ruler, Iarbas, is about to attack Carthage because she refused his offer of marriage, Aeneas steps from among the sailors' ranks, identifies himself and offers to fight alongside the Carthaginians. Dido accepts, and Aeneas rallies his forces to repel the invader, entrusting his son, Ascanius, to the queen's care.
ACT 4
Orchestral interlude: Royal Hunt and Storm. Some days later in a forest, naiads, playing in a stream, hide as hunters approach. A storm breaks, and Dido and Aeneas seek shelter in a cave. Nymphs, satyrs and fauns dance during the storm and disappear when it passes.
Evening has fallen in Dido's gardens by the sea. Anna asks Narbal, the queen's adviser, why he seems worried, now that the Numidians have been defeated. He replies that since Dido fell in love with Aeneas, she has been neglecting her duties, and that Aeneas's destiny is to go on to Italy - no good can come of the romance. Narbal is afraid that in extending hospitality to the strangers, Carthage has invited its own doom. Dido enters with Aeneas and asks him to tell her more about Troy's last days. When he says that Andromaque, Hector's widow, at length succumbed to love and married Pyrrhus, one of the enemy, Dido sees a parallel to her own situation. She and Aeneas rhapsodize about their love, but at length the god Mercury appears in the moonlight and reminds Aeneas of his destination - Italy.
ACT 5
By the shore at night, with the Trojan ships moored near at hand, Hylas, a young sailor, sings a homesick ballad and falls asleep. Panthée tells other Trojan leaders their delay is burdensome: daily omens and apparitions remind them of the gods' and the dead Hector's impatience with their failure to move on. Determined to leave the next day, they retire to their tents as two sentries pass, making way for Aeneas, who struggles to banish misgivings and do what he must. As he resolves to see Dido one more time, the ghosts of Priam, Hector, Coroebus and Cassandra appear, pressing their demands. Forced to give up Dido, Aeneas wakens the Trojans and tells them to set sail before sunrise. Dido finds him, however, and rages at his desertion. Though he protests that he loves her, she curses him. As she storms off, the distraught Aeneas boards his vessel. In Dido's palace, as dawn breaks, the queen asks her sister to go to Aeneas. Now that her anger is spent, she will try to persuade him to stay a few more days, but the Trojan ships are sighted already on their way out to sea. Dido laments that she did not foresee Aeneas's treachery and burn his fleet. Instead, she will burn his gifts and trophies; she orders a pyre built.
In the queen's gardens by the sea, a pyre has been set up, with relics of Aeneas, including the nuptial couch. Priests pray for the peace of Dido's heart, while Anna and Narbal curse Aeneas's venture to Italy. Dido predicts that her fate will be remembered, along with Aeneas's infamy: a future Carthaginian general, Hannibal, will avenge her against Italy one day. Seizing Aeneas's sword, she stabs herself and falls back on the couch. With her dying breath, Dido tells the shocked bystanders that fate is against Carthage: it will be destroyed, and Rome will rule eternal. Turning their backs on a vision of the Roman capitol, the survivors pronounce undying hatred on Aeneas and his descendants.
