Berlioz: Les Troyens

The Metropolitan Opera

At Lincoln Center

In New York on Monday

The opening-night reaction to the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Berlioz's Les Troyens was decidedly mixed. When the singers -- including Canadian tenor Ben Heppner -- and conductor James Levine took their bows, they were greeted with enthusiastic applause. Director Francesca Zambello and her creative team, however, generated a definite chorus of boos.

To many music cognoscenti, Les Troyens is second only to Wagner's Ring Cycle in towering operatic achievement, lasting as it does over five hours with intermissions. Berlioz based his own libretto on Virgil's Aeneid, with the first two acts encompassing Cassandra's prophecies of doom and the destruction of Troy, and the final three presenting the Trojan hero Aeneas and his dalliance with Queen Dido of Carthage.

Although Berlioz finished the opera in 1858, there was never a complete performance in the composer's lifetime, and precious few since. The Met is one of a handful of houses with the resources to mount this grandest of grand operas, and the boos clearly expressed dissatisfaction with a production that was singularly devoid of spectacle.

It thus fell to the singers and orchestra to lift the tedium, but even here there were problems. Maestro Levine had some fine detailing in his reading of the score, particularly the dramatic climaxes. But he elected for sustained tempos overall, which dulled musical vitality.

That said, Canadian tenor Ben Heppner was a visually surprising Aeneas, given that the singer has lost an enormous amount of weight and was practically unrecognizable. As the only major character who appears in every act, Heppner brought needed energy and vigour to the production, and for the first four acts sang like an angel, his beautiful voice soaring with clarion purity.

Still, just when one thought his recent horrendous vocal problems were over -- he has been experiencing some health problems over the past year, related to medication for blood pressure -- he had two near misses and one definite crack, the latter in Aeneas's major fifth-act aria. Because Heppner sang his money notes with ease, one assumes that a problem still lurks in his passagio, or break. Nonetheless, he gave a powerful performance, and was richly rewarded by the audience.

Soprano Deborah Voigt's Cassandra was a masterpiece of dramatic expressiveness, full of the passion and anguish of the prophetess doomed never to be believed.

As Cassandra's doubting lover Choroebus, Dwayne Croft displayed his distinctively robust yet honey-coated voice, a vocal dichotomy that makes this American baritone such an attractive singer.

Carthage was graced by mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, whose plummy sound is cocooned in a gorgeous vibrato.

Russian mezzo-soprano Elena Zaremba as Dido's sister Anna has a great top and bottom, but her middle is inarticulate and woofy. As for the Carthage men, British bass Robert Lloyd gave his usual sterling performance with a voice of commanding majesty, while Matthew Polenzani as Dido's poet Iopas earned bravos for his gorgeous, soaring lyric tenor.

Now for the boos. One does not want to speak ill of the dead, but Maria Bjornson's sets (she died last December) were a big part of the problem. Her central piece is a metallic barricade that fills most of the space above the stage, and which conceals an upper walkway. The Trojan horse, for example, was dragged along this balcony. In the middle of the barricade is a large, round hole that contains changing symbols that mirror the action, such as a circlet of lances to depict war, a golden wheat field denoting fecund Carthage, or Aeneas's departing ship.

The claustrophobic, confined space below is where most of the action occurs. While the Troy scenes, at least, had a zigzag ramp to allow for levels, Carthage, with its revolving stage, was entirely flat. This made individual singers difficult to discern when the 100-plus chorus, dancers and supernumeraries were on stage. The Plexiglas-like baffles for Carthage's intimate scenes looked straight out of a suburban shopping mall.

Anita Yavich's costumes did not help -- a dull palette for Troy, and severe white for Carthage -- which was mirrored in James F. Ingalls's unimaginative lighting. Zambello has done superb work in the past, but her predictable directing had the chorus either running around or standing in clumps. There was absolutely no sense of majesty in the ceremonial moments.

Choreographer Doug Varone had some interesting ideas, such as using the serpentine movement of the corps de ballet to re-enact the murder of Laocoon and his sons, but his Carthage divertissements were dreary, and suspending two dancers in mid-air like Peter Pan, to depict the love ecstasy of Dido and Aeneas, was downright silly.
Les Troyens continues at the Metropolitan Opera in New York until March 27.