“Fight for love before it burns.” Kudos to the marketing department for their hot tag promoting an event that unsuspecting Berlioz fans may consider half a loaf. Based on Virgil’s epic Aeneid, an uncut Les Troyens clocks in at about four hours, plus intermissions. For impresarios in the composer’s lifetime, that was a lift way too heavy. Delays were endless, and eventually the score was cut in two. The first piece to reach the stage was the final three-act arc, billed as Les Troyens à Carthage (The Trojans in Carthage), devoted to the tragic love of the fugitive Aeneas and the once-fugitive Dido, who now rules her own new-built capital on the North African shore. After further delays, the first two acts, dominated by the character of Cassandra, were unveiled in concert as La Prise de Troie (The Fall of Troy). By the time the belated premiere of the five-act Les Troyens took place, Berlioz had been dead for 21 years. All this by way of preamble. What Seattle audiences are in for is the self-contained Carthaginian section, which includes the thrilling Royal Hunt and Storm, the hauntingly elegiac love duet, tremendous monologues for the Dido of the smoldering J’nai Bridges as well as the Aeneas of the smoking Russell Thomas, and quite a lot more. That’s no half loaf, friends. Ludovic Morlot conducts. —Matthew Gurewitsch