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Berlioz - Les Troyens (CD + Bonus DVD)
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New Item
Label: Erato
Cat No: 9029576220
Barcode: 0190295762209
Format: CD + DVD
Number of Discs: 5
Genre: Opera
Release Date: 24th November 2017
From the very opening of the four-hour work – with a thrilling first salvo by the combined choruses of the Strasbourg and Karlsruhe operas as well as the Strasbourg Philharmonic’s own choir, answered by Marie-Nicole Lemieux’s electrifying delivery of Cassandra’s first warning – Nelson never allows the dramatic pace to slacken... If Lemieux’s performance dominates the first two acts, The Siege of Troy, then it’s Joyce DiDonato’s Dido who hogs the spotlight for the rest of the opera – the three acts that make up The Trojans at Carthage. ... Overall ... this is now unquestionably the version of Berlioz’s masterpiece to have at home. 
With this new set, taken from live concert performances in Strasbourg earlier this year, Erato has done the opera full justice. The recording is complete, with no penny-pinching in the orchestra (Berlioz’s six harps are all present stage left). Its American conductor, John Nelson, is the veteran of a significant number of staged productions — an achievement in itself when the work remains a rarity in the opera house. He has a live-wire grip on the score and gets detailed playing from his orchestra... Joyce DiDonato is by turns fiery and sensuous as the legendary Carthaginian queen, the silvery top of her voice adding an unusual vulnerability. It will be DiDonato’s name that sells this recording. The performance has much else to recommend it besides. 
Riveting from beginning to end.
... Nelson drives the drama with unforced tempos but ample theatrical vitality and grandeur. ... Most of the generally excellent secondary roles, the orchestra and two of the chruses are French, enhancing this recording's idiomatic feeling. 
John Nelson’s new recording of Berlioz’s magnum opus surpasses its predecessors, above all in the principal roles: DiDonato’s Didon, Spyres’s Énée and Lemieux’s Cassandra are sensationally good. 
Now, though, comes a recording that surpasses all previous efforts. Made during and after concert performances given in Strasbourg last Easter, it presents an uncut reading in which nothing seems superfluous. The conductor John Nelson was clearly born with Berlioz in his genes... The principals couldn’t be bettered today. Bright-toned, secure and vibrant, Michael Spyres makes a tremendous Enée. ... A performance as powerful as this makes it all the more poignant to think that poor Berlioz – scorned or misunderstood during his lifetime – only ever heard his masterpiece in truncated form. 
What is immediately apparent is what splendid results the engineers have achieved. The only hint that this recording is taken from live performances is the sheer adrenalin that pours through Berlioz’s spectacular set pieces, such as the visceral Royal Hunt and Storm from Act 4... The mercurial woodwind-writing leaps out of the speakers, as do the bass trombone snarls as we learn of the sea serpent swallowing Laocoön. Three choruses, drawn from the Opéra National du Rhin, the Staatstheater Karlsruhe and the Choeur de l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, offer tremendously full-blooded singing. ... Nelson’s cast is simply to die for. Marie‑Nicole Lemieux captures all the wildness and unhinged desperation of Cassandre, her burnt caramel contralto utterly compelling. ... Énée is sung thrillingly by Michael Spyres, the Berlioz tenor 
