OPERA
What They Did for Love Vittorio Grigolo, Diana Damrau impulsive, impassioned young lovers in Met’s “Roméo et Juliette” BY ELI JACOBSON
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assionate women who go to extreme lengths for love eventually making the ultimate sacrifice are the lifeblood of opera. The winter opera season brought us several shattering portraits of women who live and die for love. Only a few hours before 2017 began, Juliet Capulet died for love in the New Year’s Eve Gala premiere of the Metropolitan Opera’s new p r odu ction o f Gouno d’s “Roméo et Juliette.” When I say “new production,” it is somewhat misleading since Bartlett Sher’s staging has already been seen at Salzburg, La Scala, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Sher doesn’t go for anything too intellectually sophisticated here — but then neither does Charles Gounod! Michael Yeargan’s handsome realistic unit set surrounds the stage with carved stone building façades. Multi-level tiers of arched doorways with balconies sur round a large open central courtyard where most of the action takes place. The unit set can be redressed, which eliminates stage waits for scene changes, and there is only one intermission after the wedding scene. The action has been updated to the 18th century, evoking Casanova’s Venice in carnival season with sumptuously detailed period costumes by Catherine Zuber. Since Gounod’s score sounds more 19th century France than early Renaissance Verona, this allows the drama and the music to meet halfway in a sensible compromise. The wide frame, outdoor unit set works reasonably well in the first half for the Capulet ballroom and especially well for the Balcony Scene and the street duels (excitingly staged by B.H. Barry) in the Verona town square. In the second half, the wide open space fails to provide intimacy for Juliet’s bedchamber — the large white drapery could have been suspended as a kind of pavilion rather than used as a gigantic bed linen. Juliet wraps herself in this
KEN HOWARD/ METROPOLITAN OPERA
Diana Damrau and Vittorio Grigolo in Bartlett Sher’s staging of the Charles Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette” at the Met.
white drop as a kind of wedding dress/ winding sheet for her faked “death” scene, and then she seems to revive and zombie-walk into her own tomb. It would have been more convincing if she had been carried unconscious by supers on a litter. The unit set is scarcely better adapted to the Capulet tomb. Gounod’s adaptation of the Shakespeare tragedy has been described as one big love duet. Two charismatic leads with romantic chemistry can rescue any production of “Roméo et Juliette.” The Metropolitan Opera provided just such a pair. Vittorio Grigolo certainly possesses the Italianate good looks for Roméo, and his lean bright tenor that blossoms on top suits the French repertory. Even Grigolo’s vocal mannerisms, so unsettling in Italian opera, actually work here. The quivering vibrato, hint of pop croon in the middle register, and “hooking” into high
GayCityNews.nyc | January 19 - February 01, 2017, 2017
notes sound stylish rather than alien. He capped the Act III duel scene ensemble with a ringing high C. As an actor, Grigolo has almost too much temperament but his excitability and tendency to overact register as teenage exuberance, naiveté, and Latin bravado. This Romeo climbs up the wall to Juliet’s balcony, and we love him for it. Diana Damrau, in another role debut at the Metropolitan Opera, is an equally impulsive Juliette hurling herself headlong into passion and death. Damrau counteracts her own physical and vocal maturity with high-energy acting that borders on hyperactivity — lots of dashing around the stage, head bobbing, and frenetic gestures. Grigolo and Damrau share the same manic energy, seem magnetized toward each other, and have to be forcibly separated in the wedding scene.
Damrau’s Juliette is artistically finished with excellent French diction, musicianship, and style. I wish her vocalism had been on the same level. The coloratura of her Act I entrance and waltz song had a hard edge with effortful high notes. The more lyrical sections in later acts were marred by hollow tone with only occasional glints of silvery beauty. I hope this is due to a lingering indisposition and not vocal decline — Damrau had canceled her December 10 recital due to bronchitis. As a partnership, Grigolo and Damrau are greater than the sum of their individual performances. The rest of the cast was a mixed bag. Elliot Madore’s Mercutio was a blank cipher. Diego Silva’s slim tenor made for an unthreatening Tybalt. Handsome in stage presence and baritone voice, Virginie Verrez looked and sounded nervy and darkly attractive in the trouser role of Stéphano. Mikhail Petrenko’s grainy, shallow light bass was barely adequate to Frère Laurent. Laurent Naouri sang a suavely idiomatic Capulet. Maestro Gianandrea Noseda gave a passionate reading of the score that balanced lyrical sweetness and symphonic grandeur with dramatically propulsive tempos. Sher’s production will return in March with two younger, less experienced leads — Stephen Costello and Pretty Yende. We will see if Sher’s production is just a handsome, sensibly staged backdrop for star performers or has the dramatic integrity to propel two new star-crossed lovers into creating star-making performances of their own. They will have a tough act to follow. “Roméo et Juliette” will be transmitted live in HD at 12:55 pm on January 21 (metopera.org/Season/In-Cinemas). In an online exclusive at gaycitynews.nyc, Eli Jacobson writes about the Met’s “The Barber of Seville” plus the Prototype Festival that includes “Breaking the Waves” and “Mata Hari.”
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