In 1854, Hector Berlioz confided in his memoirs that, “For three years, I have been tormented by the idea of a vast opera for which I would like to write both words and music.” Held back by the failures of Benvenuto Cellini and La Damnation de Faust, the composer was to wait another two years before throwing himself into Les Troyens, an enterprise based on Virgil’s Aeneid: an ancient text that, galvanised by the master’s brilliant orchestral modernity, breathed new life into an operatic world still dominated by Verdi. In 1990, when the curtain rose for the first time at the Opéra Bastille, it revealed the Trojan plains. Thirty years later, a new production directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov marks the anniversary of the opera house, revealing the work in all its immensity.
