Les Troyens
During Berlioz's German tour in 1856, Liszt and his companion, Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, encouraged Berlioz's tentative conception of an opera based on the "Aeneid". Having first completed the orchestration of his 1841 song cycle "Les Nuits d'été", he began work on "Les Troyens" – The Trojans – writing his own libretto based on Virgil's epic. He worked on it, in between his conducting commitments, for two years. In 1858 he was elected to the Institut de France, an honour he had long sought, though he played down the importance he attached to it. In the same year he completed "Les Troyens". He then spent five years trying to have it staged.