The Metropolitan Opera HD Cinema

The Met: Live in HD series has brought the opera up "close and personal" to seasoned opera lovers and to some of us who have seen very few if any operas before this opportunity.
My friend and I have become quite addicted to this Saturday Matinee opportunity to enjoy the splendor of the Metropolitan Opera.

Yesterday we saw Les Troyens by Hector Berlioz. I was familiar with Berlioz's orchestral music but not opera. This is a long opera -5 and 1/2 hours and is not performed often because there are few Opera
Houses that can stage such grand sets and large number of chorus members and dancers.
There are numerous lengthy orchestral pieces without voice that were performed by dance and ballet.

The story of the Trojan Horse is familiar to many. I first read it in Latin too many years ago to mention.
It is a story of waring nations, gods and love and death.  Frequent themes of many operas.

The orchestra conducted by Fabio Luis, chorus and choreography of dance accompanied the great voices of Deborah Voight as Cassandra, Susan Graham as Dido and Bryan, a new young tenor from New Orleans, as Aeneas..

I strongly recommend you check out metopera.org and find the cinema in your city that show these Live in HD performances,