Hector Berlioz, Les Troyens (1863)

Any ol' man in the street is probably going to have a pretty good idea of what this is about, but it's bifurcated to an extent that I've never seen in an opera: the first two acts take place in Troy, as the Trojans ignore Cassandra and wheel a big ol' wooden horse into the city, with hilarious results. In the last three, the Trojan survivors led my Aeneas come to Carthage, where the queen, Dido, has a thing with Aeneas until he's told by the gods that he needs to stop fucking around and go found Rome. That happens. Dido does not react well. The end.

This was Berlioz's last opera, and apparently meant to be some kind of magnum opus. It's certainly his biggest opera, clocking in at four-plus hours not counting intermissions. And yet, I am not wholly satisfied with the piece. It's glacially slow, for one (contributing to this are a lot of ballet sequences, which--combined with the fact that it's based on Roman mythology--makes me think that this is heavily indebted to baroque opera). That's fine, kind of, I guess, but you only find what I'd actually call drama in bits and blobs, among a bunch of choral pieces that are not necessarily the most interesting--though certainly, the second-act climax, in which the Trojan women commit mass suicide to avoid dishonor, is pretty darned striking. Then the third act comes, and I dunno, a lot of music in praise of, like, increased wheat production and stuff, and I think, hmm. Maybe this could have been better-edited? Still, my objections pretty much fade away by the last act, which--perhaps inevitably--really brings the drama that was only partially present in the earlier parts of the opera. Aeneas' aria of regret "Ah! Quand viendra l'instant" is utterly terrific, as is Dido's "Je vais mourir." You can't go wrong, although it really does feel like two different operas, of which the first one is substantially less interesting.

The Met production is fine. Shedloads of extras and chorus members are required and, naturally, they deliver. Bryan Hymel is good as Aeneas, but really, this is mainly about the twin diva roles of Cassandra and Dido, and Deborah Voigt and Susan Graham deliver--even if, ultimately, the latter is just a much more dramatically satisfying role than the former. La damnation de Faust is obviously more focused and probably more successful on its own terms, but you definitely have to appreciate the ambition here, and it ultimately does pay off. I think it's funny that it was difficult-to-impossible for people to stage both of these in the nineteenth century. Write a producable opera, Hector!