Organization

Singer

Soprano

Anna Netrebko

Juliet

Ailyn Pérez

Tenor

Rolando Villazón

Romeo

John Osborn

Bass

Mikhail Petrenko

Friar Laurent

Baritone

Russell Braun

Mercutio

Mezzo-soprano

Cora Burggraaf

Stephano

Bass-baritone

Falk Struckmann

Count Capulet

In Sung Sim

Juan Francisco Gatell

Tybalt

Susanne Resmark

Gertrude

Mathias Hausmann

Paris

Jean Luc Ballestra

Gregory

Robert Murray

Benvolio

Conductor

Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Stage director

Bartlett Sher

Set designer

Michael Yeargan

Costume designer

Catherine Zuber

Lighting designer

Jennifer Tipton

Salzburger Festspiele

Others

Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor

Orchestra

Mozarteumorchester Salzburg

Chor der Wiener Staatsoper

French

Roméo et Juliette -  (Romeo and Juliet)

Salzburg

Austria

Felsenreitschule

Although Charles Gounod's "Roméo et Juliette" is less well known than his "Faust", he is blessed with four great, ravishing love duets that allow his two title roles to revel in lyrical luxury.

In this Salzburg Festival production, recorded at the Felsenreitschule, the title heroes are the much-praised Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón and the young Georgian soprano Nino Machaidze - two singers and personalities with the makings of a new "dream couple".

Villazón is "an ideal Roméo ... His vocal chords seem to have grown directly to his heart", writes Der Tagesspiegel about the exceptional artist and with this apt description Villazón's complete devotion to emotions, his hot-blooded stagecraft and his ability to achieve erotic fulfillment on the one hand and on the other hand, being able to express the hopelessness of his fate with his voice is fair.

His Juliette, Nino Machaidze, combines her graceful appearance with a bright, clear voice and an agile, youthful stage presence - a singer on the way to stardom! Broadway director Bartlett Sher and his team manage to bring Shakespeare's Verona to life with a few captivating props, many exquisite costumes and a dramaturgy that is always helpful to the plot.

However, in the eyes of many, the true discovery of the production is the young Montréal conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who delivers Gounod's work with vibrancy and passion. In the words of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Nézet-Séguin immerses himself "so seriously in the specific charm of the score that all of its treasures, which are certainly there, are brought to light" and thus allows the Mozarteum Orchestra, with its fabulously differentiated playing, to sing a "hymn to a religious, aesthetic and erotic moments, reconciling sensuality … intone in floating, finely flavored sounds”.
This lively interpretation of 'Roméo et Juliette' makes this intensely lyrical work a worthy counterpart to Gounod's 'Faust'.

Großes Festspielhaus

Roméo et Juliette Gounod

Public

Romeo and Juliet

German

English

Approved

Shakespeare's extraordinary play, Romeo and Juliet, was a radical text in the Renaissance. In it, he took new ideas, popular in court among the neo-Platonists, and dramatized them. The neo-Platonists found a path to engage the world through individual love. Shakespeare expanded this to social tragedy, where love heals the public strife of two warring families.
Gounod, writing 250 years later, is interested in something completely different. Influenced by Wagner (particularly Tristan), he explores how individual love offers access to the divine, something blasphemous to Shakespeare's audience. His opera is an emotional dreamscape of the play, and placing it amidst the templar walls of the Felsenreitschule creates the opportunity to experience the ecstasy of falling in love through Gounod's music. But he pushes this choice further toward the radical implications of two young people finding meaning not only in love, but in death as a path to the divine.
That experience and its emotional implications for the society in which they live is the dreamlike journey of Gounod's opera, and the course of this production today.
Bartlett Sher

Romeo and Juliet by Gounod, From (2008/2008), Directed by Bartlett Sher,, Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Felsenreitschule, Salzburg, Austria

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Ensemble

Program, About & Synopsis

Photos

Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues