I was led to talk of my admiration for Virgil and of the idea I had formed of a great opera, designed on Shakespearean lines, for which Books Two and Four of the Aeneid would provide the subject-matter.

As I persisted in my refusal: 'Listen,' said the princess, 'if you shrink before the hardships that it is bound to cause you, if you are so weak as to be afraid of the work and will not face everything for the sake of Dido and Cassandra, then never come back here, for I do not want to see you ever again.'

Finally, tired of waiting, he agreed to let Léon Carvalho, director of the smaller Théâtre Lyrique, mount a production of the second half of the opera with the title Les Troyens à Carthage.

44] was cut because, as Berlioz himself realized, "Madame Charton's voice was unequal to the vehemence of this scene, which took so much out of her that she would not have had the strength left to deliver the tremendous recitative Dieux immortels!

These were followed by two concerts in New York: the first, Act 2 of La prise de Troie, was performed in English on 6 May 1882 by Thomas's May Festival at the 7th Regiment Armory with Amalie Materna as Cassandre, Italo Campanini as Énée, conducted by Theodore Thomas; the second, Les Troyens à Carthage (with cuts), was given in English on 26 February 1887 at Chickering Hall with Marie Gramm as Didon, Max Alvary as Énée, and possibly conducted by Frank Van der Stucken.

[16] In subsequent years, according to Berlioz biographer David Cairns, the work was thought of as "a noble white elephant – something with beautiful things in it, but too long and supposedly full of dead wood.

"[17] At the time of the 1863 production of Les Troyens à Carthage, Berlioz permitted the Parisian music editors Choudens et Cie to publish the vocal score as two separate operas.

Berlioz complained bitterly of the cuts that he was more or less forced to allow at the 1863 Théâtre Lyrique premiere production, and his letters and memoirs are filled with the indignation that it caused him to "mutilate" his score.

In his July 1867 will Berlioz lamented that Choudens had failed to meet their contractual obligation to engrave the full score and asked his executors to ensure the opera "be published without cuts, without modifications, without the least suppression of the text — in sum exactly as it stands."

[18] In the early 20th century, the lack of accurate parts led musicologists W. J. Turner and Cecil Gray to plan a raid on the publisher's Paris office, even approaching the Parisian underworld for help.

[17] In 1969, Bärenreiter Verlag of Kassel, Germany, first published the full score of Les Troyens in a critical edition containing all the compositional material left by Berlioz.

[20] With its publication, as well as the release in 1970 of the first complete recording (based on Covent Garden performances conducted by Colin Davis), "it was finally possible to study and produce the whole work, and to judge it on its own merits.

[27] The cast included Marguerite Gonzategui (Didon), Lucy Isnardon (Cassandre), Jeanne Laval (Anna), Paul Franz (Énée), Édouard Rouard (Chorèbe), and Armand Narçon (Narbal), with Philippe Gaubert conducting.

[32] The Paris Opéra gave a new production of a condensed version of Les Troyens on March 17, 1961,[33] directed by Margherita Wallmann, with sets and costumes by Piero Zuffi.

Pierre Dervaux was the conductor, with Régine Crespin as Didon, Geneviève Serrès as Cassandre, Jacqueline Broudeur as Anna, Guy Chauvet as Énée, Robert Massard as Chorèbe and Georges Vaillant as Narbal; performances by this cast were broadcast on French radio.

[17] The first American stage performance of Les Troyens (an abbreviated version, sung in English) was given by Boris Goldovsky with the New England Opera Theater on 27 March 1955, in Boston.

On 5 May 1964 at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Crespin (as Cassandre and Didon) and Chauvet were the leads for the South American premiere, conducted by Georges Sébastian.

[17] Tim Ashley of the Gramophone writes, the Philips recording "brought an entire generation of listeners to the work, and as [Berlioz's biographer David] Cairns puts it, it finally 'blew to smithereens the idea that the opera was a dead duck — the fruit of an old, worn-out composer.

'"[36] Ashley also asserts: "Understanding of [Berlioz's] achievement [as a composer] was also notably incomplete owing to the absence from the repertory of Les Troyens in any form in which we now recognise it.

[37][38] On 17 March 1972, John Nelson conducted New Jersey's Pro Arte Chorale and Festival Orchestra in a concert performance of the complete opera at Carnegie Hall in New York.

[43] Les Troyens, with all the music restored, opened the Metropolitan's centenary season in 1983 under James Levine with Plácido Domingo, Jessye Norman as Cassandre and Tatiana Troyanos as Didon.

A full staged version conducted by Charles Dutoit and produced by Francesca Zambello took place at the Los Angeles Opera on September 14, 1991 with Carol Neblett, Nadine Secunde and Gary Lakes.

In 1993, Charles Dutoit conducted the Canadian premiere of Les Troyens in a full concert version with the Montreal Symphony and Deborah Voigt, Françoise Pollet and Gary Lakes which was subsequently recorded by Decca.

The Met's production, by Francesca Zambello, was revived in the 2012–13 season with Susan Graham as Didon, Deborah Voigt as Cassandre, and Marcello Giordani and Bryan Hymel as Énée, conducted by Fabio Luisi.

Knowing the work only from a piano reduction, the British critic W. J. Turner declared in his 1934 book on Berlioz that Les Troyens was "the greatest opera ever written."

David Cairns described the work as "an opera of visionary beauty and splendor, compelling in its epic sweep, fascinating in the variety of its musical invention... it recaptures the tragic spirit and climate of the ancient world."

Hugh Macdonald said of it: In the history of French music, Les Troyens stands out as a grand opera that avoided the shallow glamour of Meyerbeer and Halévy, but therefore paid the price of long neglect.

There are several recordings of the work, and it is performed with increasing frequency.Berlioz specified the following instruments:[52] The Trojans are celebrating apparent deliverance from ten years of siege by the Greeks (also named the Achaeans in the opera).

He lies to King Priam and the crowd that he has deserted the Greeks, and that the giant wooden horse they have left behind was intended as a gift to the gods to ensure their safe voyage home.

The Carthaginians then utter one final curse on Énée and his people to the music of the Trojan march, vowing vengeance for his abandonment of Didon, as the opera ends.