Women on the Virgil of a nervous breakdown
Anticipating John Eliot Gardiner’s epic tour next month, Chris’s Cache savors several versions of Berlioz’s Les Troyens.
We will hear Shirley Verrett’s historic assumption of both Cassandre and Didon on the same evening 50 years ago; just Les Troyens à Charthage featuring Christa Ludwig as Didon from several weeks later, plus a Vienna Troyens starring Helga Dernesch and Agnes Baltsa.
Verrett’s feat came at the Met’s first-ever Troyens when she replaced the originally announced Ludwig. Nell Rankin, Ludwig’s cover, sang the dress rehearsal but Verrett was tapped instead for the premiere. I’ve added a recording of the opera’s final three acts from later that fall with Ludwig in excellent form–in my opinion superior to the broadcast from the following spring.
Ludwig repeated her Didon three years later when Vienna mounted its new production with Dernesch as Cassandre. Baltsa first came on board later during that initial run in 1976 and then again in 1979 when today’s in-house recordist captured it.
Both the 1973 Met and 1979 Vienna performances feature some cuts, but they are far more complete than the version Régine Crespin (in both leading female roles) sang in San Francisco in 1966 and which remains available here.
I attended Eliot Gardiner’s extraordinary Chatelet Troyens in 2002. How fortunate that it remains available on DVD.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yujWl4rjAE
His new tour featuring Michael Spyres as Enée will stop in Salzburg, Versailles and Berlin before concluding at the BBC Proms on 3 September.
Berlioz: Les Troyens (Verrett)
Cassandre/Didon: Shirley Verrett
Anna: Mignon Dunn
Ascagne: Judith Blegen
Enée: Jon Vickers
Chorèbe: Louis Quilico
Narbal: John Macurdy
Iopas: Kenneth Riegel
Hylas: Leo Goeke
Panthée: Richard T. Gill
Priam: Edmund Karlsrud
Conductor: Rafael Kubelik
Metropolitan Opera
22 October 1973
In-house recording
Berlioz: Les Troyens à Carthage (Ludwig)
Didon: Christa Ludwig
Anna: Mignon Dunn
Ascagne: Judith Blegen
Enée: Jon Vickers
Narbal: John Macurdy
Iopas: Kenneth Riegel
Hylas: Leo Goeke
Panthée: Richard T. Gill
Conductor: Rafael Kubelik
Metropolitan Opera
15 November 1973
In-house recording
Berlioz: Les Troyens (Dernesch/Baltsa)
Cassandre: Helga Dernesch
Didon: Agnes Baltsa
Anna: Marjana Lipovsek
Ascagne: Olivera Miljakovic
Enée: Pentti Perksalo
Chorèbe: Hans Helm
Narbal: Kurt Rydl
Iopas: Horst R. Laubenthal
Panthée: Peter Wimberger
Priam: Alfred Sramek
Conductor: Gerd Albrecht
Wiener Staatsoper
25 September 1979
In-house recording
Each Troyens can be downloaded by clicking on the icon of a cloud with an arrow pointing downward on the audio player above and the resulting mp3 file will appear in your download directory.
Christopher Corwin
Christopher Corwin began writing for parterre box in 2011 under the pen name “DeCaffarrelli.” His work has also appeared in , The New York Times, Musical America, The Observer, San Francisco Classical Voice and BAMNotes. Like many, he came to opera via the Saturday Met Opera broadcasts which he began listening to at age 11. His particular enthusiasm is 17th and 18th century opera. Since 2015 he has curated the weekly podcast Trove Thursday on parterre box presenting live recordings.
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Topics: chris's cache
