{"id":19267,"date":"2015-06-21T10:05:41","date_gmt":"2015-06-21T17:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=19267"},"modified":"2015-06-21T10:05:41","modified_gmt":"2015-06-21T17:05:41","slug":"the-trojans-san-francisco-opera-performance-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/the-trojans-san-francisco-opera-performance-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trojans — San Francisco Opera Performance — Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trojans<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Hector Berlioz<\/p>\n

San Francisco Opera Performance<\/p>\n

June 20, 2015<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

This is actually two operas and performing them together creates a mammoth production.\u00a0 The Capture of Troy<\/em> occupies the first two acts.\u00a0 Acts three through five make up The Trojans at Carthage<\/em>.\u00a0 The two operas are really distinct despite the fact that the composer, Hector Berlioz, conceived of them as a unified whole.\u00a0 When the opera was first performed at the Theatre Lyrique in Paris, they would only do the second part, The Trojans in Carthage<\/em> — and they cut it down quite a bit.\u00a0 Berlioz never saw The Fall of Troy<\/em> performed.\u00a0 Thomas May’s offers a lengthy and informative discussion of the history of this opera’s composition and performance in the program.\u00a0 It is very good and I highly recommend it.\u00a0 May tells us,<\/p>\n

the lack of a definitive full-scale production when Les Troyens<\/em> was new to the world caused even more long-lasting damage than Berlioz had pessimistically foreseen.\u00a0\u00a0 The division and cutting of the work perversely underscored the notion that Berlioz had written a sort of heroic “ruin” that lacked coherence and integral construction. . . Worse, distorted perceptions of Les Troyens<\/em> encouraged stereotypes of the composer as a washed up Romantic revolutionary who had lost his fire and reverted to a more “conservative” approach.\u00a0 (p. 39)<\/p>\n

I am largely in agreement with this assessment.\u00a0 This monstrosity is unwieldy and it does lack internal coherence.\u00a0 What is consistent is that the males end up ignominiously deserting the scene at the end of each opera, and the females end up dead.\u00a0 There is very little that connects The Fall of Troy<\/em> to The Trojans in Carthage<\/em> except that some of the same characters are used.\u00a0 But it is two very different, very loosely related stories.\u00a0 Neither opera is very well written and putting them together on the same program subjects the audience to a long, punishing evening.<\/p>\n

I always try to say something positive, if I can, and in this opera what is positive is the music.\u00a0 The music score is outstanding, and it considerably raised my estimation of Berlioz as a composer.\u00a0 It makes it all the more poignant that this music composer of the first rank had no talent as a dramatist or as a storyteller.\u00a0 The Trojan War has a vast wealth of dramatic possibilities, and yet the best Berlioz can get out of it is dull, slow moving, repetitious, and interminably long.\u00a0 He seems to avoid anything truly dramatic on stage and relates the real drama and conflict in the story line through narratives in soliloquies.\u00a0 The romance between Aeneas and Dido in The Trojans in Carthage<\/em> is juvenile and melodramatic.\u00a0 Berlioz knew nothing about love relationships.\u00a0 The character of Dido is particularly incoherent and ad hoc.\u00a0 She starts out as a queen beloved by all of her people and ends up this embittered, venomous, vengeful, suicidal woman — nothing like a queen at all.\u00a0 How could she have ever been a queen, let alone a queen of such capable leadership?\u00a0 She is a totally cartoonish, unconvincing character.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t help that the sets were unimaginative, the lighting was uninteresting, and the costumes were from the nineteenth century.\u00a0 They had the Trojan soldiers in nineteenth century military uniforms carrying nineteenth century swords.\u00a0 Some of them were even carrying long rifles and muskets.\u00a0 Since when did the Trojans carry rifles in 1200 BC?\u00a0 In Act 5 two soldiers shared a cigarette.\u00a0 Was it the Trojans’ own brand, or did they import them from Greece?<\/p>\n

Act 4 started with a ballet segment that was well conceived and beautifully done.\u00a0 No vocal music during the ballet, only orchestral accompaniment.\u00a0 The structure of Act 4 was two ballet segments alternating with two vocal segments.\u00a0 The ballet segments were very well imagined and well executed and could work as standalone ballet pieces were they to be excised from this opera.\u00a0 The choreographers, Lynne Page and Gemma Payne did an excellent job along with the dancers, and the orchestral score was very well suited to the dance.\u00a0\u00a0 It made me think that this whole idea of the Trojan War could be recast as a ballet, and it would be much leaner and much more interesting than this long, cumbersome opera.\u00a0 It is unfortunate that Berlioz’s score was crafted for this dreary, undramatic opera.\u00a0 Maybe there is a creative composer and a choreographer out there who could adapt it into much more dynamic and aesthetically pleasing ballet.<\/p>\n

By the middle of the first act I was wondering if I should sit through all five hours of this.\u00a0 I couldn’t think of a good enough reason not to, such is the state of my life right now, so I stayed and watched the whole thing.\u00a0 It was akin to long flight on an airplane, where it is mildly uncomfortable and you are looking forward to it ending.\u00a0 If Berlioz had been able to collaborate with someone who had ability in theatrics he might have produced a great opera.\u00a0 Unfortunately, this is a mediocre work, but with a first rate sound track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Trojans By Hector Berlioz San Francisco Opera Performance June 20, 2015   This is actually two operas and performing them together creates a mammoth production.\u00a0 The Capture of Troy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[837],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-joe-cillo"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"