Perhaps the most enduringly successful of the many operatic settings of the world’s greatest love story.
A scene from Roméo et Juliette at the Metropolitan Opera Photo: Ken Howard/MetropolitanOpera
Sunday 10 June at 6.00pm on RNZ Concert
Metropolitan Opera 2018 Season
GOUNOD: Roméo et Juliette
This opera is an excellent example of French Romanticism, a tradition that values subtlety, sensuality, and graceful vocal delivery over showy effects.
Roméo......................... Charles Castronovo
Juliette......................... Ailyn Pérez
Stéphano...................... Karine Deshayes
Mercutio...................... Joshua Hopkins
Frère Laurent............... Kwangchul Youn
Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra/Plácido Domingo (EBU)
In Shakespeare’s lifetime, Italy was a land of many small city-states in constant warfare with one another, but this same country was also the cradle of the Renaissance, with its astounding explosion of art and science. The image invoked by the story’s setting in the ancient city of Verona, then, is a beautiful but dangerous world where poetry or violence might erupt at any moment.
A scene from Roméo et Juliette at the Metropolitan Opera Photo: Ken Howard/MetropolitanOpera
In the opera there is a slight shift of focus away from the word games of the original play and a greater focus on the two lovers, who are given four irresistible duets, including a brief final reunion in the tomb scene that does not appear in the play.
A scene from Roméo et Juliette at the Metropolitan Opera Photo: Ken Howard/MetropolitanOpera
As the curtain rises, a chorus tells of the endless feud between the Montague and Capulet families, and of the love of their children, Roméo and Juliette.
