Monumental operas deserve epochal stagings. And ‘Les Troyens’ by Hector Berlioz is such a work. This grand opera, complete with ensembles and ballets, large choruses and orchestral set pieces, is given an appropriately grand treatment in this production by the renowned Catalan theater group ‘La Fura dels Baus’ recorded at Valencia’s Palau de les Arts. In this coproduction with St. Petersburg’s Mariinski Theater and Warsaw’s Wielki Theater, the Fura’s director, Carlus Padrissa, has gathered around him his faithful collaborators Franc Aleu (video), Roland Olbeter (sets), Chu Uroz (costumes) and Peter van Praet (lighting) who crafted Valencia’s sensational ‘Ring des Nibelungen’ (also available from UNITEL ). ‘That this is such a feast for the eyes, a veritable orgy of optical opulence, is due to the sheer inexhaustible fantasy and creativeness of the Catalan artist group’ (Das Opernglas).
Benvenuto Cellini
The absence of the work in the operatic repertoire is certainly due in part to its musical excesses: the work is so complex, richly detailed and prolifically imaginative that Berlioz’s contemporaries considered it unplayable and unsingable. This is resoundingly proven false in the 2007 Salzburg Festival production of director Philipp Stölzl, conductor Valery Gergiev and a high-caliber cast accompanied by the Vienna Philharmonic and its chorus. Stölzl, above all, has poured his experience as director
of music videos (for Madonna, Mick Jagger and others), commercials and films into this project, termed ‘science fiction for Grand Opera’ (Süddeutsche Zeitung), ‘breathtaking’ (Der Standard), and ‘spectacularly successful’ (F.A.Z.).