Wednesday 22 May: Concert Programme - London Symphony ...

Programme Notes (continued)
HectoR Berlioz (1803–69)
Act V from ‘The Trojans’ (1856–58)
Ekaterina Semenchuk Didon mezzo-soprano
Sergei Semishkur Aeneas tenor
Ed Lyon Hylas / Iopas tenor
Lukas Jakobski Panthee / Narbal bass
Claudia Huckle Anna contralto
Duncan Rock First Soldier baritone
Gary Griffiths Second Soldier baritone
Grace Durham Ghost of Cassandre mezzo-soprano
James Platt Ghost of Priam bass-baritone
Szymon Komasa Ghost of Chorebus baritone
Rick Zwart Ghost of Hector bass-baritone
London Symphony Chorus
As a great opera conductor, Valery Gergiev has chosen to end
his birthday gala with a concert performance of Act V of Berlioz’s
mammoth opera Les troyens (The Trojans), based on Virgil’s epic
poem about the Trojan Wars. Berlioz was familiar with The Aeneid
from childhood, and the scene of Dido on her funeral pyre was
the one which appealed most vividly to his imagination. He worked
on The Trojans in the mid-1850s, completing it by 1858, but all
his efforts to have it staged at the Paris Opéra came to nothing.
Eventually, in 1863, a three-act version (Les Troyens à Carthage) was
staged at the Théâtre Lyrique, but lasted for just one night before
Berlioz was obliged to start hacking away at the colossal score.
The opera was never staged complete in his lifetime, and the first
more or less complete performance was given at Karlsruhe in 1890.
Not until the 1960s and the determined advocacy of conductors such
as Sir Colin Davis was it assimilated into the operatic mainstream.
Act Five opens, the Trojan retinue is being harried by the ghosts
of their dead Trojan comrades, urging them onwards to Italy.
Aeneas sings of his bitter but fruitless regret at the thought of
abandoning Dido (‘Inutiles regrets’), and is minded to stay longer,
until the ghosts of Priam, Hector, Cassandra and Chorebus urge him to
leave. He hurries his troops down to the harbour, bids a final farewell
to the scene of his brief happiness, and sets sail. Dido rushes in,
appalled at this inexplicable turn of events, and curses her faithless
lover, as the fleet disappears to the sound of the Trojan March.
Left alone, Dido realises that pursuit is useless and gives way to
despair. She orders a funeral pyre to be constructed and resolves
on death (‘Je vais mourir’). She bids farewell to her city, while
momentarily recalling the bliss of her doomed love affair. A pyre is
built in the palace gardens, on which are placed mementos of Aeneas,
including the bed he had shared with Dido. The queen ascends the
pyre, throwing Aeneas’s toga and her own veil on to it. In a prophetic
vision, she foresees her death avenged by Rome’s nemesis Hannibal.
She stabs herself and dies, as her people curse Aeneas and the
Trojans, but the music of the Trojan March returns and the final scene
is an apotheosis of the future glory of the Roman Empire.
Acts One and Two deal with the final, bloody stages of the Trojan War.
After the fall of Troy, the Trojan prince, Aeneas escapes with a small
band of followers and sets sail for Italy, where he is destined to found
a mighty empire. In Acts Three and Four, a storm forces his fleet to
take shelter at Carthage, on the North African coast, where he falls
in love with its queen, Dido. But he is not allowed to dally long; as
6 Programme Notes