Berlioz: Les Troyens

Bryan Hymel (Énée), Eva-Maria Westbroek (Didon), Anna Caterina Antonacci (Cassandre), Fabio Capitanucci (Chorebe), Hanna Hipp (Anna), Brindley Sherratt (Narbal), Ed Lyon (Hylas), Ji-min Park (Iopas)

Royal Opera House, Sir Antonio Pappano, Sir David McVicar

It's powerful in all senses, not least Antonio Pappano's conducting, which is dramatically hard-driven but not without atmosphere, making the love music luminously sensuous...The huge cast is... — BBC Music Magazine, January 2014, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 30th Sep 2013
Catalogue No: OA1097D
Label: Opus Arte
Series: Royal Opera House Collection

Presto Recording of the Week

7th October 2013
BBC Music Magazine

January 2014

DVD Choice
Gramophone Awards

2014

Finalist - Opera

Berlioz: Les Troyens

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, June 2012
Bryan Hymel (Énée), Eva-Maria Westbroek (Didon), Anna Caterina Antonacci (Cassandre), Fabio Capitanucci (Chorebe), Hanna Hipp (Anna), Brindley Sherratt (Narbal), Ashley Holland (Panthée), Pamela Helen Stephen (Hécube), Ed Lyon (Hylas), Ji-min Park (Iopas), Ji Hyun Kim (Hélénus), Robert Lloyd (Priam), Jenna Sloan (Polyxéne), Barbara Senator (Ascagne), Sophia McGregor (Andromaque), Lucas Jaconi (Captain), Adrian Clarke, Jeremy White (Soldiers)
Royal Opera House Covent Garden
Sir Antonio Pappano (conductor) & Sir David McVicar (director)

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Favourites, Hector Berlioz

Katherine takes up the 'Presto Recommends' baton this week and selects some favourite recordings of works by Hector Berlioz.

Recording of the Week, Berlioz's Les Troyens from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

7th October 2013

Sir David McVicar’s 2012 production packs some serious magic thanks to Es Devlin’s breathtaking sets and fiercely committed performances from Eva-Maria Westbroek, Bryan Hymel and Anna Caterina Antonacci in the three main roles.

Running time: 275 minutes

Subtitles EN/FR/DE/ES/JP/KR

Sound format: 2.0LPCM + 5.1(5.0) DTS

Les Troyens is a tour de force that ranges from fiery military marches to intense choruses, passionate soliloquies and the lyrical love duets of Dido and Aeneas. For Hector Berlioz, librettist and composer, the opera became the work of decades and the passion of a lifetime, the culmination of his literary love affair with Virgil's Aeneid and with two tragic heroines, Cassandra and Dido. David McVicar's staging is on an enormous scale, assembling one of the largest casts ever seen at Covent Garden. The sweeping theme of the rise and fall of empires runs throughout Les Troyens, along with moving meditations on love and honour.

Reviews

January 2014

It's powerful in all senses, not least Antonio Pappano's conducting, which is dramatically hard-driven but not without atmosphere, making the love music luminously sensuous...The huge cast is uniformly good and sometimes exceptional - especially tenor Bryan Hymel's Aeneas...It's an intelligent, theatrically energetic staging.

January 2014

It is magnificent...McVicar marshals his huge forces with a sure hand and shows an impressive concern for detail...[Antonacci's] every phrase, every gesture, is mesmerising...Westbroek as Dido is so heartbreaking in the final scenes that you forget how dramatically inept they are; and Bryan Hymel is a match for Davis's Jon Vickers

31st October 2013

Es Devlin’s set designs are brilliantly realised and effectively done...[Antonacci] is a magnificent Cassandra, worthy to compare with the best of them...it is [Westbroek's] humanity and vulnerability that impress most...Listening to [Hymel] you are never in any doubt that you are listening to a hero...this release is a triumph.

7th October 2013

Devlin’s sets certainly supply visual impact in spades...Hymel deliver[s] something very different, very special and (dare I say it?) more authentically ‘French’-sounding than Kaufmann might have been...[Antonacci] brings a no-holds-barred physicality to the role...Westbroek makes for a radiant, vulnerable Didon...this was one of the operatic highlights of 2012 and it retains much of its impact in this excellent DVD transfer.

Videos

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Antonio Pappano, EvaMaria Westbroek and Tony Hall on Les Troyens

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Bryan Hymel discusses the role of Aeneas

Berlioz: Les Troyens

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