Les Troyens, at Royal Opera House, Seven magazine review

David McVicar's superficial production of Berlioz’s five-hour opera is no Trojan epic

Les Troyens by Royal Opera at Covent Garden
Superficially striking: Les Troyens by Royal Opera at Covent Garden Credit: Photo: Alastair Muir

Such is the epic scale of Hector Berlioz’s Les Troyens – really two operas, with around five hours’ music – that any production is an Olympian undertaking, and Covent Garden's first crack at the whole work in 40 years is an event in itself. But the rapture at its opening felt distinctly modified, as if this were a facsimile of the piece rather than the real thing in all its towering grandeur.

The first obstacle to any Troyens lies in the famously hard-to-cast roles of Dido and Aeneas, and at least Eva-Maria Westbroek and Bryan Hymel give problem-free performances. But theirs are not truly epic characterisations.

The Dutch soprano manages moments of vulnerability as the Carthaginian queen, yet is an increasingly generalised performer, and the American tenor (a late substitute for Jonas Kaufmann) has the notes if not the fervour for the Trojan hero.

Es Devlin’s sets are eye-catching, impressively so with a Trojan horse made from the scrap metal of war – a giant equine sculpture that could gobble up all the warhorses in War Horse.

But turning Carthage into a sunbaked toytown, however magically lit by Wolfgang Göbbel, gives the director David McVicar license to play soldiers, and Moritz Junge dutifully supplies him with costumes updating the action to the Crimean War, also the time of composition.

In this typically superficial McVicar staging, cluttered by dancers and acrobats going through the motions of Andrew George’s choreographed “slimnastics”, those French uniforms soon begin to evoke Les Misérables. The spectacle leaves little room for insightful dramaturgy.

Around these pillars of blandness, Covent Garden has the basis, though, of a distinctive Troyens. Few artists probe deeper into Cassandre’s anguish than Anna Caterina Antonacci, whose histrionic dignity is matched by her vocal amplitude.

There are outstanding cameos from the warm-toned Hanna Hipp as Anna and Brindley Sherratt as wise old Narbal. Fabio Capitanucci (Coroebus), Barbara Senator (Ascanius) and Ed Lyon (Hylas) make strong contributions. Antonio Pappano conducts with reasonable momentum and a wonderful feeling for Berlioz’s textures.

To Jul 11; www.roh.org.uk

This review also appeared in SEVEN magazine, free with the Sunday Telegraph

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