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Les Troyens is a French grand opera in five acts by Hector Berlioz, with a libretto written by the composer himself based on Virgil's Aeneid. The score was composed between 1856 and 1858, but Berlioz did not live long enough to see the work performed in its entirety. However, the last three acts, substantially abridged, were performed during his lifetime under the title Les Troyens à Carthage by Léon Carvalho's company, the Théâtre Lyrique, in Paris in 1863. For this performance, Berlioz added an orchestral introduction and a prologue. He was not happy with the result, noting bitterly that he had agreed to let Carvalho do it "despite the manifest impossibility of his doing it properly. He had just obtained an annual subsidy of a hundred thousand francs from the government. Nonetheless the enterprise was beyond him. His theater was not large enough, his singers were not good enough, his chorus and orchestra were small and weak."
This picture shows the cover of the "second version, second issue" of the vocal score for Les Troyens à Carthage, published in 1863.Illustration credit: Antoine Barbizet; restored by Adam Cuerden