Les troyens

Les Troyens (in English: The Trojans) is a French grand opera in five acts by Hector Berlioz. The libretto was written by Berlioz himself from Virgil's epic poem the Aeneid; the score was composed between 1856 and 1858. Les Troyens is Berlioz's most ambitious work, the summation of his entire artistic career, but he did not live to see it performed in its entirety. Under the title Les Troyens à Carthage, the last three acts were premièred with many cuts by Léon Carvalho's company, the Théâtre Lyrique, at their theatre (now the Théâtre de la Ville) on the Place du Châtelet in Paris on 4 November 1863, with 21 repeat performances.

Berlioz began the libretto on 5 May 1856 and completed it toward the end of June 1856. He finished the full score on 12 April 1858. Berlioz had a keen affection for literature, and he had admired Virgil since his childhood. The Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein was a prime motivator to Berlioz to compose this opera.

[…] At that time I had completed the dramatic work I mentioned earlier and which I referred to in a footnote to one of my earlier chapters [i.e. chapter 59 concerning Les Troyens: see above]. Four years earlier I happened to be in Weimar at the home of Princess Wittgenstein – a devoted friend of Liszt, and a woman of character and intelligence who has often given me support in my darkest hours. I was led to talk of my admiration for Virgil and of the idea I had formed of a great opera, designed on Shakespearean lines, for which Books Two and Four of the Aeneid would provide the subject-matter. I added that I was all too aware of the pain that such an undertaking would inevitably cause me ever to embark on it. "Indeed, the princess replied, the conjunction of your passion for Shakespeare and your love of antiquity must result in the creation of something grand and novel. You must write this opera, this lyric poem; call it what you like and plan it as you wish. You must start work on it and bring it to completion." As I persisted in my refusal: "Listen, said the princess, if you shrink before the hardships that it is bound to cause you, if you are so weak as to be afraid of the work and will not face everything for the sake of Dido and Cassandra, then never come back here, for I do not want to see you ever again." This was more than enough to decide me. Once back in Paris I started to write the lines for the poem of Les Troyens. Then I set to work on the score, and after three and a half years of corrections, changes, additions etc., everything was finished. As I was polishing the work over and over again, after giving numerous readings of the poem in different places, listening to the comments made by various listeners and benefiting from them to the best of my ability, I decided to write the following letter to the Emperor:

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