The Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique’s semi-staging of Berlioz’s Les Troyens reached the Proms mired in controversy. It was scheduled to be conducted by John Eliot Gardiner, who withdrew from the planned European tour and the rest of this year’s engagements “to focus on his mental health,” after a violent backstage altercation on the tour’s opening night with the bass William Thomas, cast as Narbal, during which the conductor reportedly punched the singer because he exited the platform on the wrong side. Gardiner subsequently issued a statement saying he deeply regretted his behaviour. His replacement was the ORR’s associate conductor, Dinis Sousa. Thomas, meanwhile, was indisposed for the Prom performance, and Narbal was sung by Alex Rosen.
Despite such vicissitudes, much of this was magnificent. Sousa was electrifying in moments of grandeur, high drama and emotional intensity. Playing and choral singing were both sensationally good, which meant that the fall of Troy was edge-of-your-seat-stuff, with an almost fanatical vehemence in the singing, and a thrilling exploration of Berlioz’s orchestral palette, with its edgy woodwind, dark strings and rasping, terrifying brass. The opening of the Carthaginian scenes, in contrast, were all sensuous warmth and refinement until the Trojans’ arrival begins to poison the atmosphere. Occasionally Sousa underplayed some of the more reflective scenes, and there was a lack of momentum and dramatic fire in the duets between Paula Murrihy’s Dido and Beth Taylor’s Anna, and later between Taylor and Rosen.
The cast was consistently impressive. Cassandra lies fractionally high for Alice Coote: the role ideally needs a dramatic soprano rather than a mezzo, though there was no mistaking the emotional depth and ferocity she brought. Murrihy, in contrast, was poised and regal, if on occasion fractionally cool. She sounded lovely in the great duet with Michael Spyres’s Aeneas, sung with handsome ease and great tonal warmth. Lionel Lhote made a lyrical Coroebus, more sympathetic than some. Taylor has such a glorious voice, meanwhile, that I ended up wishing that Berlioz had given Anna more to do. Apart from a distractingly busy Royal Hunt and Storm, Tess Gibbs’s semi-staging had some strikingly effective moments, not least the ritualistic mass suicide of the Trojan women that closes Act II and the power salutes at the end when the Carthaginians swear vengeance on Rome. An exciting evening, despite its chequered history.
• Available on BBC Sounds until 9 October. The Proms continue until 9 September.
