Berlioz: Les Troyens CD review – electrifying performances set a new benchmark

John Nelson, Joyce DiDonato and a carefully assembled cast never let the pace slacken in a stylish recording full of tremendous dramatic commitmentThough it is one of the landmarks in 19th-century French music, and one of the grandest of all grand operas, new versions of Les Troyens, Berlioz’s vast Virgilian epic, come along all too rarely. John Nelson’s magnificent recording, based on a pair of concert performances he conducted in Strasbourg earlier this year, is the first complete