Each January, the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra (BYSO) presents a concert version of an opera at Sanders Theater. Most are familiar, drawn from the Italian repertory. This year, BYSO struck out in a different direction offering Les Troyens à Carthage by Hector Berlioz. This opera is actually the last three acts of a five-act work, Les Troyens, that in its entirety runs for more than five hours — one of the reasons it is rarely performed in full. The BYSO, as have many companies, performed only the last three acts, in the version known as Les Troyens à Carthage, which itself has a playing time of three hours.
Owing to the impending snow emergency, the company moved the performance — slated for Sunday afternoon —up to Saturday night to a time slot scheduled for its dress rehearsal. Even without that critical stage in a production’s creation, the singers, the chorus and the orchestra moved confidently through the score under the careful hand of Federico Cortese. It is a testament to BYSO’s quality, that the audience that nearly filled the house had rearranged its lives on a few hours’ notice. The orchestra did not disappoint. They played magnificently, giving a stellar cast of professional singers a firm foundation from which to dazzle.
The full opera recounts Virgil’s tale in “The Aeneid” of the destruction of Troy and the subsequent flight of the Trojan warrior Aeneas with his men. The first two acts focus on the fall of Troy; the last three, on the time the Trojans spent in Carthage on their way to Italy where, according to legend, they founded the city of Rome. Carthage nearly became their permanent home when Aeneas fell in love with the Carthaginian Queen, Dido. Ultimately, propelled by the Fates, Aeneas departs to face his destiny in Italy, leaving Dido despondent.
Berlioz saw in this epic and tragic love story the makings of what he considered would be his masterpiece. It took him five years to complete it, and several more to get even parts of it produced. The first full performance occurred 21 years after his death. Given its rare appearances on opera stages, the BYSO is commended all the more for its somewhat-staged mounting. Few of us have ever seen this opera, or will likely have the chance again. Full disclosure: this was my first encounter with Les Troyens apart from a Metropolitan Opera telecast in1983.
In grappling with its complexities, companies have generally made extensive cuts. Even in Berlioz’ day, some parts were eliminated, and new parts inserted as various producers worked with the composer to stage it. Many versions followed. The result was a jumble of a score. In 1969, the German publisher Bärenreiter issued a critical edition of the full opera prepared by musicologist Hugh Macdonald, the version Cortese chose.
Perhaps because it was composed over so many years, the music embraces a variety of styles. The first two acts of Les Troyens à Carthage offer pleasant, if unremarkable music, more like an earnest oratorio than a passionate opera. While hearing it was enjoyable, much of it lacks the big emotional arias that would a few decades later become a staple of Verdi and his contemporaries. Extended ballet sequences, with many repeats, are richly orchestrated and lovely to hear, but never melodically memorable. This may be due partly to the libretto which Berlioz wrote himself. In telling the story, he seems unable to omit any subplot involving the gods or historical figures. As the story wanders, so does the music.
In Act 3, a different composer seems to have taken over. The change is foreshadowed in the closing segments of Act 2 as Dido and Aeneas — or Didon and Énée, to Berlioz—consummate their love in the full knowledge that a future together is impossible. Didon is keenly aware that she is dishonoring the memory of her late husband, and Énée knows he is attempting to defy his fate.
Early in Act 3, Énée offers as passionate an aria as has ever been written. Sung brilliantly and powerfully by tenor John Matthew Myers from a corner of the Sanders balcony, he wrestles with knowing he has to leave Carthage and that by doing so he will devastate Didon. Myers is not only a superb musician, but a good actor. As we watched, we pretended not know the outcome of this argument he was having with himself. It could have gone either way. He made us feel deeply for Énée, as does mezzo-soprano Avery Amereau, as Didon did when she appeared soon after in an impassioned aria that Amereau infused with raw emotion.
She made it as painful to watch as it was beautiful to hear. In the first two acts, Didon resembles a Limoges figurine, delicate and perfect in every way. She walks with regal grace showing off the splendid costumes by Brooke Stanton. But with the man she loves about to abandon her, Amereau’s Didon turned into a fierce animal, all but howling in anger and despair. She drew on her rich lower register even as she thrillingly soared for the high notes. Her perfect coiffure became a tangle. She tore around the stage, her cape billowing behind her, at one point collapsing and writhing on it. Amereau kept it authentic and never allowed herself to slip into caricature. It was heart-stopping opera at its best.
If BYSO had performed only Act 3, the evening would have been a success, but then we would have been denied some very good singing by others in the cast earlier on. Didon’s sister, Anna, sung here by sweet-voiced Shannon Keegan, provided warmth as the well-meaning match-maker who encouraged Didon, widowed for seven years, to find a new love; she then worked overtime to fan Didon’s growing ardor for Énée. Later, of course, she movingly sang of her remorse for the same. In the few duets that Berlioz gave Didon and Anna, Amereau and Keegan created a shimmering sound, even when the music itself failed to excite.
Act 1, filled with what could almost be described as background music, remained static until Cory McGee bounded on to the stage as the Carthaginian general Nabal and brought with him a sense of urgency and power…not to mention a rich bass-baritone that injected the first moments of real excitement. His velvety sound enriched his duets with Didon and Anna.
As Didon’s major domo, Iopas, Neal Ferreira, a Boston favorite tenor, got one good aria and a lot of recitatives. He delivered well throughout. Junhan Choi, with his resonant baritone, presented a commanding figure as Pantheus, a priest of Apollo and close friend of Énée. He watched Énée’s growing entanglement with Didon with apprehension and sang of his concerns in clarion tones. Soprano Aurora Martin sang sweetly in the brief trouser-role of Énée’s son, Ascanius. And tenor Philippe L’Esperance as Hylas, movingly opened the final act with a dreamy song of longing for home that captured the unsettled feelings among Énée’s about his prolonged dalliance in Carthage.
The chorus in this opera gave a full-voiced, visceral presence throughout. Chorus Master Charles F. Prestinari deserves praise for helping them shape the wide range of emotions they generated. Whether vigorously cheerful citizens of Carthage, or ethereal embodiments of the Fates, they added rich color.
Joshua Major, who has done similar fine work in several recent BYSO operas, skillfully conceived the blocking and direction. Using only a throne-like chair and a few benches, he created distinct spaces that with the help of his singers became an audience hall, a forest, a funeral pyre and so on. His imagination gave ours all that was needed to fill in the rest. Four sails hung hauntingly above the stage, reminding all that the Trojans were on a journey that had yet to end. Major’s gift for imparting clarity helped us follow Berlioz’s frequent narrative footnotes. He deftly used the chorus, especially in Act 3, to underscore the seething emotions. He drew from the principals, performances neither they nor the audience will soon forget. He helped his singers get inside their characters and live their music and not just sing it.
The highest kudos of all must be given to Cortese. How does he do it? In order to give all of his BYSO players a chance to participate, he has two full orchestras on stage at various times, each as superb as the other. In many ways, the first two acts are more of an orchestral concert with singers, with time out for a ballet. There are also a couple of interludes that display Berlioz’s great gift for orchestration. Under Cortese, the young orchestras played with the precision and panache, as has come to be expected of them. Bravo, Maestro.
This production is just the most recent of Les Troyens long history in Boston where the opera received its American premiere in English in abbreviated form under the baton of Boris Goldovsky in 1955 at the New England Conservatory. The Opera Company of Boston’s Sarah Caldwell directed the first complete American production in 1972 at the Orpheum (much as she staged and acclaimed account with Jon Vickers of the composer’s Benvenuto Cellini there in 1975). Cortese and his team can take their places with these giants of American opera. And not even a foot of snow could stop them.
Stephen Landrigan is a former print journalist and concert presenter.