THE TROJANS AT CARTHAGE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 929, 31 May 1957, Page 26

THE TROJANS AT CARTHAGE

OWARDS the end of his readable Treatise on Orchestration, Berlioz sketches out what he considers to be an ideal orchestra. In it he would have 242 strings, 30 grand pianos, 30 harps, legions of wind and percussion players, with complete families of brass and woodwind. Not one to do anything on a small scale it was unlikely, when he turned to opera, that he would leave it exactly as he found it. His Beatrice and Benedict was a charming comedy, but it was in The Trojans that his genius was able to expand, to overthrow the trifling plots and insincerities of his time and on a classical theme create an epic masterpiece. Since his youth Berlioz had been a teader of Virgil and a lover of the ancient world of Greece and Rome. He took the Trojan war as his theme and wrote his own libretto, translating and adapting from Virgil as well as taking ideas from the plays of Shakespeare. He told of the destruction of Troy, of the wanderings of the Trojans, of the fateful meeting between Dido and Aeneas and foretold the defeat of the

Carthaginians and the rise of Rome. "It is beautiful because it is Virgil, it is striking because it is Shakespeare," wrote Berlioz, modestly forgetting the role his own music was to play. He divided the opera into two: "The Fall of Troy" and "The Trojans at Carthage," and it is this second part which will be broadcast. He told his story in a straightforward way, taking pains to see that the music illustrated and reinforced the words. In the middle of the work he wrote a symphonic interlude, "The Royal Hunt and Storm," which is often played today at concerts. The whole work demands a large cast and orchestra, would last four hours 20 minutes, and is not often performed. In 1950, however, an almost full-length performance was given at Oxford. Miss Mandikian sang Dido, and its effect was reported to be overwhelming. It seemed that Sir Donald Tovey was right when he called it "one of the most gigantic and convincing masterpieces of music drama," (1YC, 8.0 p.m., Sunday, June 9.)