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Epic opera, epic performance: "Les Troyens in Concert" at Seattle Opera

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J'Nai Bridges (left) and Kelley O'Connor (right) / David Jaewon Oh
J'Nai Bridges (left) and Kelley O'Connor (right) / David Jaewon Oh

Les Troyens in Concert
by Hector Berlioz
Seattle Opera premiere
McCaw Hall, Seattle Center
January 17 and 19, 2025


Those lucky enough to be at Seattle Opera for one of only two concert performances of Hector Berlioz's Les Troyens saw something truly spectacular: 80 Seattle Symphony musicians filling the stage, with the 60-member opera chorus rising like the Fates behind them.

It was a properly dramatic setting for mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges and tenor Russell Thomas to embody a key episode of Virgil's Aenead, about the betrayal of love and the founding of Rome. Led by conductor Ludovic Morlot, a specialist in Berlioz's complex and demanding music, the performance was so satisfying that it was hard to imagine how sets and costumes could have improved it.

Both principal singers have truly heroic voices. Bridges, in particular, was compellingly tragic as Dido, the betrayed Queen of Carthage. Her powerful, expressive voice covered the full range of emotions as Berlioz's music flowed through the opera like an ocean of sound. Kelley O'Connor, making her debut as Dido's sister Anna, was a gentle counterweight to the intensity of passion driving the tragedy.

The most famous highlight is the love duet between Dido and Aeneas, "Nuit d'ivresse et d'extase infinie!" ("Intoxicating night and infinite ecstasy!"), a full six minutes of nuanced harmony buoyed along on orchestral waves. The temptation is to belt out the passionate parts, but Thomas, singing the role of Aeneas for the first time, matched Bridges' nuanced moods throughout the duet's challenging length.

Two Seattle Opera regulars, soprano Tess Altiveros and bass Adam Lau, sang beautifully in the relatively small but important roles of Aeneas' son Ascanius and Dido's adviser Narbal, respectively. Tenor John Matthew Myers made an impressive debut as Iopas, whom Dido summons to the stage to sing an aria honoring Ceres, goddess of the harvest.

A rare opportunity

In a preperformance talk, dramaturg Jonathan Dean told audience members that Les Troyens is performed so rarely that this concert production was likely to be a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." There are good practical reasons: when fully staged, Les Troyens is prohibitively long (seven hours!) and expensive, with an even larger orchestra and chorus and a number of ballet sequences and battle scenes. In addition, the opera is full of gorgeous music but short on dramatic tension, so an abridged concert version is ideal.

When an opera is presented in concert — stripped of sets, costumes, dancers, and supernumeraries — attention is focused on the music and the few visual cues that balance a potentially overwhelming presence of sound. In addition to being able to watch Morlot's eloquent conducting and the rhythmic physicality of the musicians, the audience experienced a sublime light show reflecting the moods of the drama. Director Anderson Nunnelley and Lighting Designer Robert Aguilar deserve credit for the clever use of light and shadow that made a minimal stage into an ocean of shifting colors and silhouettes.

The stage, extending over the orchestra pit, was covered in a shallow blanket of metallic confetti that reflected different colors with the shifting moods of the drama — blue, red, purple; anxiety, passion, despair. As the singers moved about the stage, the confetti swirled in little clouds that suggested the godlike quality of myth. Evocative shadows were cast onto the wings as the performers advanced and parted from each other, as though haunted by their own fates.

Praise is deserved all around for a concert version of Les Troyens that was as fascinating and as elegant as anything Seattle Opera has done in the past. Chapeau bas! (Hats off!) Stay tuned for another treat coming in February: a clever new staging of a Mozart favorite, The Magic Flute.

Andrew Potterin (left) and Tess Altiveros (right) / David Jaewon Oh  

Russell Thomas (left) and J'Nai Bridges (right) / David Jaewon Oh  

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