2023-08-27 16:26:59
Stopping at Versailles after the Isère city of La Côte-Saint-André where Hector Berlioz was born on December 11, 1803, John Eliot Gardiner was to seize one of the lyrical works which had legitimately earned him, twenty years ago, unanimous praise. But on Tuesday August 22, the evening of the premiere at La Côte-Saint-André, the British maestro took on one of the singers, bass Will Thomas, backstage., that he went so far as to slap and hit.
He would have reproached the latter for having left the wrong side of the stage at the end of the first act. Following this violent gesture, the irascible conductor abruptly withdrew, leaving the baton the next day to his assistant, Dinis Sousa, for the rest of this tour, expected as an event from Salzburg to Berlin and London, as Gardiner excels in the music of Berlioz.
An apology for the “distress caused”
«I make no excuses for my behavior and have personally apologized to Will Thomas, for whom I have the utmost respectthe chef said in a statement. I apologize again, and to the other artists, for the distress this has caused. I realize how much this affected all the participants involved in this major project that was so dear to me. » His agent added that a bad night troubled by the heat wave and the change of heart medication would have disturbed the 80-year-old conductor on the day of the unfortunate performance.
Tuesday, August 29, from 6 p.m., music lovers will therefore discover Dinis Sousa, still little known in France, in the incomparable setting of the Royal Opera of the most famous French castle. An opportunity also to recall how tumultuous was the creation of the Trojans.
Beginnings, genesis, difficulties…
This vast opera in five acts, to a libretto written by the composer himself from The Aeneid of Virgil, indeed crystallizes all of the Berliozian muse. And in the first place the “accidents” of its genesis and, above all, of its scenic career punctuated with obstacles and reluctance.
As evidenced by his rich correspondence, Berlioz worked on the composition of his opera from April 1856 to April 1858. Many attempts had been made beforehand, and many changes were subsequently made: some on the advice of relatives ( in particular the friend and singer Pauline Viardot, whom he assimilated for a long time to his Cassandre, heroine of the first part of the work), and many others according to the injunctions of the theater directors.
The Paris Opera had thus planned to program the complete work (five acts) during its 1861-1862 season… subject to numerous concessions. Berlioz even agreed to split it into two “independent” parts: The Capture of Troy et The Trojans at Carthage. Only the latter, consisting of the last three acts, was finally premiered at the Lyric Theater at the end of 1863, but with many cuts. Berlioz therefore never attended the performance of the complete works of his beloved Trojans.
The complete finally!
It was not until December 6, 1890 that, in Karlsruhe in Germany, the first part was given in a German version. The whole, offered in one and the same evening, waited until 1913, still in Germany, then on February 6, 1920 at the Théâtre des Arts in Rouen. As for the true integral creation, it was not really realized until 1957 at Covent Garden in London, under the direction of Rafael Kubelik.
Even today, the vast dimensions of the score (more than four hours of music, more than twenty characters, an omnipresent choir, a bloated orchestra and the use of rare instruments, etc.) often hamper the organizers of shows!
Virgile, Gluck and unusual sounds
Essentially Berliozian, the fidelity of the Trojans to the aesthetic ideals of the artist. To Virgil first, already companion of the young Hector at La Côte-Saint-André. “While writing this, I gave in to an irresistible drive; I satisfied a violent passion which broke out in my childhood and has only grown since then. he confided on March 3, 1858 in a letter to the writer Émile Deschamps.
Then to French lyrical tragedy, illustrated by Gluck: “There are two great superior gods in our art: Beethoven and Gluck. One reigns over the infinity of thought, the other over the infinity of passion.affirmed Berlioz to his friend Théodore Ritter, pianist pupil of Liszt, again in a letter dated January 12, 1856.
All for drama and expression
We finally recognize the formidable sonic and dramatic power proper to the author of the fantastic symphony and of The Damnation of Faust. Always “idiomatic”, its instrumentation plays as many mass effects as subtleties of rare, dreamlike or exotic timbres: ophicleide and saxhorn, ancient sistrums and darbouka. To his great friend Carolyne de Sayn-Wittgenstein, who faithfully encouraged him during the composition of TrojansBerlioz passionately professed to want “Finding a way to be expressive, true, without ceasing to be a musician, and on the contrary giving new means of action to music, that is the problem”.
This expressiveness of the music characterizes vigorous symphonic moments (the storm at the start of Act IV is a striking example) and stunning choral ensembles, such as the octet with double choir “Dreadful punishment! » It is she also who inflames the imprecations of Cassandra announcing to her blinded brothers the fall of Troy; it is she who afflicts the lamentations of Dido, queen of Carthage abandoned by Aeneas. Two unforgettable voices…
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