Troy Rediscovered

"I have been tormented by the idea of a vast opera of which I should write both words and music," wrote Hector Berlioz toward the end of his embittered career. "I am resisting the temptation." Several years later in 1858, he added a note to his memoirs: "Alas, no! I could not resist. I have just finished the book and music of Les Troyens, an opera in five acts. What is to become of this huge work?"

As he might have guessed, very little was to become of it. The Trojans called for 20 principal singers, two choruses, ten different sets, hunters on horseback, ships moving out of a harbor, naiads swimming in "a natural basin," a stream that becomes "a roaring waterfall" and, of course, a large wooden horse. With the creaky stage equipment of the 19th century, the giant workrivaling Wagner's marathons in sizecould not be performed in much less than seven hours. Berlioz himself heard it only in truncated form, and since his death it has never been given a full stage performance in a single evening. Last week Britain's Covent Garden bravely trundled Berlioz huge century-old Trojan horse onto the stage again. To everybody's pleased surprise, it proved to be a thoroughbred.

Warmed-Over Virgil. Actually, The Trojans is really two operas in one. The first part tells the story of the fall of Troy, while the second describes the tattered survivors at Carthage and the love story of Dido and Aeneas. The Berlioz libretto is warmed-over Virgal shot through with a Shakespearean flavor (Berlioz described parts of it as "stolen from Shakespeare and Virgilianized"). To give the sprawling work a proper production and still hold it to a manageable 4 1/2 hours (with only minor cuts), Covent Garden prepared lavish sets and drew on all its artistic and mechanical resources. Sir John Gielgud got his first crack at opera direction. Mezzo-Soprano Blanche Thebom (with all six feet of her hair unwound) was cast in the ear-rending role of Dido, Queen of Carthage, and Conductor Rafael Kubelik presided over a 150-man orchestra and an assortment of behind-the-scenes instrumentalists and vocalists for offstage choruses and flourishes. On a lofty bridge in the flies, 50 singers, an extra conductor, five harpists and 15 brass instrumentalists waited tensely for musical cues relayed to them on monitor screens from a TV camera focused on Conductor Kubelik's baton.* On the teeming stage below were the principal singers plus 100 in the chorus and ballet, plus 48 supers. "It's all so huge," said harassed Director Gielgud, "it's like trooping the colors."

Somehow, out of all this vast confusion (amplified by the presence of five pony-sized Irish wolfhounds, cast as hunting dogs) emerged as powerful and moving a performance as British operagoers have seen in many years. Berlioz was anxious in The Trojans to restore pure song to first place in opera, and he succeeded magnificently. The work is studded with lovely arias bathed in richly hued orchestration. The musical theme that runs through the opera is the broad pomp-and-circumstantial Trojan March, first heard with ironic overtones as the Trojans, tired of Cassandra's doom-singing, drag the horse into the city; then brassily as they arrive at Carthage; and again with a touch of moody irony as they board the ships for "Roma, Roma, city eternal."

Work of Genius. In last week's performance Mezzo-Soprano Thebom's vibrant, dark-tinted voice was in fine form. Canadian Tenor Jon Vickers as Aeneas was the hit of the evening with a voice that amply filled the house and an acting style that had critics groping for comparisons with famed heroic tenors. And the chorus sang with striking clarity and intensity. The major disappointments were a lackluster performance by Amy Shuard, as the tempestuous Cassandra, and the Royal Hunt scene, in which the dancers thundered about the stage like a herd of Cyclopes rather than naiads.

When the curtain rang down, audience and critics knew that they had seen a first-rate performance of a major opera. "Its length is nothing to Wagnerians," said the Times. "It is not only full of incidental beauties--as amateur performances have already told us--it is [also] an exciting and splendid work of genius . . . Hector Berlioz thought big."

*An innovation that might recommend itself to other old opera houses. At the Met, assistant i conductors in charge of offstage choruses often stand on ladders, peering through holes in the scenery to take their cues from the conductor in the pit.

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