Trojans

From our privileged position, half a century on, there may be a temptation to feel superior and to undervalue the 1957 Covent Garden Trojans and what it achieved. We hear these distant sounds with ears familiar with the work from performances --conducted by the likes of Colin Davis, John Eliot Gardiner, James Levine and others --more assured and accurate than was possible for those worthy pioneers, tackling it for the first time. They had to make do with inaccurate performing material hired from the Paris firm of Choudens, disfigured by mistakes. But what Rafael Kubelik and his performers achieved was absolutely crucial. The Covent Gardent production vindicated Berlioz's original conception of a five-act opera embracing Troy and Carthage in a single span and did so in the face of a century of hostile, dismissive opinion.