Rumours flying in advance of the first night of English National Opera's new production of The Capture of Troy informed us that Richard Jones's staging would examine the implications of Berlioz's opera in the aftermath of September 11.
In some respects, this is untrue. Jones maintains his decision to relocate the work to the US was taken before the terrorist attacks took place, and though his staging draws into itself a vast range of US iconography, its frame of reference is considerably wider than to recent events.
Whether the work survives the transposition, however, is questionable. Nor, perhaps, should we judge Jones's production as finished, for what we are experiencing is effectively only half an opera. Berlioz never intended The Trojans to be split in two. ENO is not running the complete work until next year.
The first thing we see in Jones's production is the burned out fuselage of a crashed - or shot down - plane, which the Trojans are ignoring in their desperate attempts to catch sight of the infamous horse, which is about to bring about their destruction. That Jones is meditating on US imperialism and kitsch is soon clear. The Trojan royal family has become presidential. Andromache, mourning Hector, is Jackie Kennedy dressed for JFK's funeral. The horse itself is then dragged into a baseball stadium accompanied by a balletic display of stereotypical cowboys and Indians.
Berlioz's main focus, however, is not on war's perpetrators but its victims, chief of whom, in The Capture of Troy, is Cassandra, the distraught prophetess whom no one believes. It is in his treatment of Cassandra that Jones reveals problems in dealing with his material. Berlioz initially presents her in isolation. Jones, however, has her deliver her first aria to a disbelieving Priam, who has clumsily been brought on stage for the purpose. Where Berlioz gives us stasis in Cassandra's music, Jones has men with syringes rushing on to give her shots in the arm.
Despite a brave, glorious performance by Susan Bickley, who shapes Berlioz's arching vocal lines with astonishing beauty and power, Cassandra's tragic force is diminished. Here she is the loony at the centre of a dysfunctional family. Berlioz was after something infinitely more subtle. The other principles struggle a bit, too. John Daszak, his head brutally shaved, is a fierce Aeneas, though the vocal line occasionally lies too high. As Choreobus, Cassandra's weak-willed lover, Robert Poulton is effective. Paul Daniel's conducting has tremendous energy, and there is some ropey playing, though the choral singing is glorious.
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