Live Performance Review: Les Troyens: Performed by Mariinsky Opera (Edinburgh International Festival (E.I.F.) 2014), Friday 29.08.2014 17:00, The Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Opera, as with Theatre, is a medium I feel I am just beginning to try to find my way within. This production was sung in French with English Supertitles, though it still had a very Russian feel to it. This, to me, is a long opera, which was put on in three sections and once you remove the breaks was a bit over four hours. 

I was most taken by the first section, where the staging appeared most grand and impressive. After the first section the staging became, on the whole, a lot more simplistic. Overall it feels difficult to pick fault as the singing and musicianship, to my ears, sounded fine. 

Sadly there was an element that niggled throughout most of the second and third sections. The production made very good use of screens, projections and mirrors to create the appearance of a greater and more malleable space. Though due to how the mirrors were angled, from where I was sat, you could continually see cast and stage hands doing prep in the wings. This struck as a careless oversight. I am sure there would have been enough space for these people to have stood back a bit further and therefore not have been as distracting as they were. 

The production, as a whole, did feel a bit of a trial and a bit turgid as it went on. I did have a sense of waning towards the end. I am aware that I did greatly enjoy Dido and Aeneas last year, though did not enjoy Bluebeard's Castle. I don't feel I greatly enjoyed this, though it was undoubtedly better than Bluebeard. I am undecided as to whether opera as a medium is really something I am curious enough about to continue exploring. 

Rating: 08/10.