GOUNOD : ROMÉO ET JULIETTE

GOUNOD'S ROMEO AND JULIET

Radio New Zealand Concert network 
Sunday 26th of February 2017 at 6 - 9.20 pm
Sunday  30th of August 2015 at 6;03 - 9 pm
Sunday 10th of August 2014 at 6;03 - 9 pm
Sunday 13th of January 2008 at 3 pm  (NYMet 15/12/2007)
2017
GOUNOD: Roméo et Juliette, an opera in five acts based on the tragic drama by William Shakespeare
Romeo......................... Vittorio Grigolo
Juliet............................ Diana Damrau
Gertrude...................... Diana Montague
Friar Lawrence............. Mikhail Petrenko
Tybalt........................... Diego Silva
Paris............................. David Crawford
Mercutio...................... Elliot Madore
Grégorio....................... Jeongcheol Cha
Stéphano...................... Virginie Verrez
Benvolio...................... Tony Stevenson
Capulet........................ Laurent Naouri
Duke of Verona........... Oren Gradus
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Gianandrea Noseda
 2017
GOUNOD: Romeo & Juliet, an opera in five acts
Juliet................................. Sonya Yoncheva
Romeo.............................. Roberto Alagna
Friar Lawrence................. Roberto Tagliavini
Mercutio........................... Joan Martín-Royo
Stéphano........................... Marianne Crebassa
Count Capulet.................. Laurent Alvaro
Tybalt............................... Mikeldi Atxalandabaso
Gertrude........................... Diana Montague
The Duke.......................... Fernando Radó
Paris.................................. Damián del Castillo
Gregory............................ Toni Marsol
Benvolio........................... Antonio Lozano
Intermezzo Chorus, Madrid SO/Michel Plasson
(recorded in the Teatro Real, Madrid)


INTRODUCTION
SYNOPSIS
LIBRETTO (French/English)

There's plentiful truth in the misquotation 'Much opera hath made thee mad'. Take a look at the weirdos around you next time you go to the opera, and you will see why I prefer to enjoy it at home, mostly, so as not to add another fanatic to the lunatic audiences. Who wants to be in La Scala, when they boo Radames Alagna for wobbling on one of his celestial notes in 'Celeste Aïda', causing him to throw a wobbly and stalk off? (But here he is in Madrid as Roméo, more his style.) However, I class the Palmerston North Regent opera house as 'home', and only sensible sensitive people go there, but infrequently, of course, for reasons that could cause me to rage furiously if I rehearsed them here. No apologies for this apparent digression, but I progress: Nellie Melba as Juliette was confronted on stage by an ardent admirer who thought Jean de Reszke as Roméo was not good enough for her, so the tenor put him to the sword (too blunt to do more than push him off the stage).

When Shakespeare's Hamlet was turned into an opera by Thomas, Hamlet did not die at the end. How about a happy ending for the Montague and Capulet lovers of Verona? I have heard of such a thing, but I can not remember where and when it happened. How might it work? Juliette wakes up in the tomb, finds Romeo dead; but a girl can't live without love, and money; the other gentleman of Verona, Count Paris, would do nicely after all; last act, a wedding, with a ball and a ballet. But why waste time on idle dreaming: Barbier and Carré gave Gounod a rapturous finale with the lovers in an ecstatic embrace. I translate:

Juliette: This moment is sweet. O joy infinite and supreme, to die with you; come, a kiss, I love you.

Gounod allows her to use a dagger, and let it be said that there is no hint of necrophilia in this; they are both alive when they kiss (unless the director orders them to desist).

Denis Forman's Good opera guide lacks this one, so we do not have his opinion of it; his criterion for inclusion is that it must have three recordings in the catalogue; Faust gets in easily, but neither R et J nor Mireille (which I saw in the London Coliseum, too soon after getting off the plane, so that I dozed off in the boat scene) had an available recording in the 1994 Penguin guide to opera. For Mireille I have Valerie Masterson, and for Juliette I have Mirella Freni opposite Franco Corelli (3 black discs with no book, from Slow Boat Records in Wellington, for $20).

The song we all recognize from it (Je veux vivre, I want to live) is Juliet's waltz arietta about the ivresse (drunkenness) of jeunesse (youth). Yes, we know all about that in our city streets and plazas, and the aftermath of broken glass puncturing my bike's tyres; but she means the sweet intoxicating flame of love in her soul.
2014
GOUNOD: Romeo & Juliet, an opera in five acts
Juliette.............................. Annick Massis
Roméo.............................. Aquiles Machado
Frère Laurent.................... Patrick Bolleire
Mercutio........................... Pierre Doyen
Stéphano........................... Marie-Laure Coenjaerts
Count Capulet.................. Laurent Kubla
Tybalt............................... Xavier Rouillon
Gertrude........................... Christine Solhosse
Duke................................. Patrick Delcour
Paris.................................. Benoît Delvaux
Grégorio........................... Roger Joakim
Benvolio........................... Marie-Laure Coenjaerts
Opéra Royal de Wallonie Chorus & Orch/Patrick Davin
(recorded in the Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liège by Belgium Radio)

Sunday 13th of January 2008 at 3 pm
NYMet 15/12/2007

_,,,(o\/o),,,_ Whot? Still no opera quiz?!

Last week we heard the amazing Placido Domingo as the hero Orestes in Gluck's Iphigenia in Tauris, and in an interview on the way to his dressing-room he said he would be conducting this Gounod opera in the evening of that same day! Much work has made him placid. Well, here he is again, a week later, wishing he was up on the stage wooing Anna (the story of Adelina Patti's 29 kisses with Nicolini in the balcony scene shows us that the singers can get carried away in this opera). But Domingo has actually sung Roméo at an advanced age.

 Obsolete Metropera archival references
COMPOSER
BACKGROUND
UNDERGROUND
CHARACTERS
SYNOPSIS
STORYLINE
ANALYSIS
INTERVIEWS Renée Fleming: Alagna, Netrebko, Domingo
LIBRETTO