The Shades of the Heroes
Hector
Berlioz and his grand opera, Les Troyens
This opera represents a childhood dream. When Hector Berlioz was a boy, his father introduced him to the world of the Trojan War. Vergil's Aeneid - the story of Aeneas, the founder of Rome; of the beautiful Carthaginian queen, Dido; of the fall of states and the rise of heroes; of betrayed love and of love pledged forever; - all that he was well acquainted with.
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Act I / Chorus |
| For ten long years the walls imprisoned us. |
| Oh what joy to breathe again |
| The clear air of the fields |
| No longer rent by the noise of battle. |
Sensationalism, and at the same time philosophy of history. Was not a child whose father gave him the name Hector at his baptism (in 1803) in a certain manner under an obligation to honour in his descendant Aeneas that most wonderful and most human hero in Homer? That's how Cassandra comes into play.
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| Act I / Cassandra |
| What!, They're moving on us with the horse? I spied him in the distance! |
| The enemy is coming and the city gates are open! |
60 years for a childhood dream
60 years - Berlioz began composing the work in his mid-fifties and had it finished ten years later - for a childhood dream? Not a bad record, even for a dreamer like Hector Berlioz. And in fact the history of the composition and production of the work reads like a drama in its own right. If one is to understand the powerful, monumental, challenging nature of Les Troyens, one has to take into account the drama of its provenance.It is only at this level that a comparison with Wagner's Ring der Nibelungen may be ventured, for these two central operatic works of the nineteenth century are completely different with regard to their content.
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| Act II, Scene 1 Hector's shade |
| Ah flee, son of Venus, the enemy is on our walls! |
In 1850 Berlioz set about making his childhood dream come true by compiling the libretto from books I, II and IV of the Aeneid and from the love scenes between Jessica and Lorenzo in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice (the other great luminary in his firmament of literary greats).
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| Act II, Scene 2 Cassandra |
| Who are these irons for, and these cords of silk, |
| If not for you, you women of Troy? |
Cassandra is his own invention completely. The soothsayer, "who is always right and whom nobody believes", is the central figure in the first and second acts, which were first performed (concertante) as Prise de Troie in 1879 - ten years after the composer's death! Acts III-V of his grand opera fared somewhat better, having been sung and acted during his lifetime under the title Les Troyens à Carthage in the Théâtre-Lyrique in Paris.
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| Act III Aeneas |
| Royal queen, I am Aeneas. |
| My fleet has been driven by tempests onto your coast. |
| I have trained my followers to hardship and toil. |
| Permit the Trojans to do battle with you! |
But Dido's tragedy of love always had it easier than Cassandra's tragedy of knowing. It was only in our century of horror that both parts could be combined in one: the first performance of the whole work (but greatly abridged) was given in Stuttgart in 1913, and it was only on May 3rd, 1969 - a full 100 years after its composition - that the full, unabridged version was performed at the Scottish Opera in Glasgow.
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| Act IV, Scene 1 |
| Dido, dressed like Diana the huntress, bow in hand and quiver on shoulder, and Aeneas in semi-warrior attire, make their appearance. |
In practice there are, indeed, major problems connected both with the music and with the staging. Apart from the protagonists Aeneas, Cassandra and Dido, who are required to master the specifically French style of singing (a mixture of lyric and heroic voices), there are a whole lot of other roles and a truly monumental choral score. And the orchestra is also stretched to the limit by the opera: for the stage music alone nine saxhorn players are needed. Says Berlioz expert Hellmuth Kühn: "What is asked of the chorus and ballet dancers goes beyond anything that is required in a normal repertoire." Another childhood dream, which perhaps only a festival performance can really do justice to.
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| Act IV, Scene 2 Dido |
| Aeneas, Be so good |
| And continue to the end |
| The story you have started |
| About your long wanderings |
| And the great misfortune of the Trojans. |
Cassandra and Dido the heart of the opera
The opera centres around the female characters of Cassandra and Dido. The one goes to her death unheeded, the other unrequited. Both tragedies take place against the pessimistic background of nation states collapsing, of kingdoms falling and crumbling.
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| Act V, Scene 1 |
| Dido: Are you sailing away? |
| Aeneas: Yes, but to die |
| In obedience to the gods. |
| I go, and you I love! |
The vision of a new Troy, in Italy, which accompanies Cassandra and the other Trojan women as they go to their deaths, is juxtaposed with the curse which Dido, abandoned by Aeneas, wishes upon the same Italy. It will fall upon the peaceful culture of Carthage (presented with great musical charm by Berlioz) - the reference being to the disastrous war of Rome against Carthage that is to come. The command issued to Aeneas, who has sacrificed his love for Dido, is: "To Italy!", and it is issued by the shades of the Trojan heroes who accompany with warnings and threats the humans who seem to be acting with free will . It is here, among these shades, that the historical pessimism of the work becomes totally clear for the first time. Every utopia of a liberated, peaceful state is dashed to pieces on the weakness of the human spirit, wrecked on the curse of perpretated atrocities.
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| Act V, Scene 2 |
| Iopas: The Trojans have set sail! |
| Dido: What do you say? |
| Iopas: Their fleet was on the high seas before the dawn. |
| You can still see it. |
In grandiose scenes and musical tableaus, Berlioz points up the dichotomy between peace as a commission and war as a duty. In doing so, he never forgets to combine the ingenuity of his respected master, Gluck, and the French tragdèdie-lyrique of a Rameau, with his own romantic genius. His highly-romantic emotionality, which grated so much against the classicism of Gluck, delivers the dream of the child Hector from the heroes of Greek antiquity as portrayed in the grand opera of a Meyerbeer or a Spontini.
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| Act V, Scene 3 / Dido |
| Rome ... Rome ... immortal! |
The differences remain: the tragedy of the women, like a studio theatre play, contrasts with the great fuss and show attached by the French to the Rome-and-nationalism idea which pervaded the country at least from the time of the Revolution in 1798. The task is to harmonize these opposites and make them experienceable on the stage - in the name of a childhood dream, in the shadow of the ancient heroes.
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