CHARLES GOUNOD
ROMÉO ET JULIETTE
CONTENTS
P.
4
SYNOPSIS P.
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AN ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH ADRIAN MOURBY P.
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CHARLES GOUNOD P.
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SPANNING THE DIVIDE GAVIN PLUMLEY
P.
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SHAKESPEARE’S ROMEO – AS IF WRITTEN FOR MUSIC HANS ULRICH BECKER P.
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GOUNOD AND VIENNA – STEPS TOWARDS SUCCESS MICHAEL JAHN P.
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IMPRINT
CHARLES GOUNOD
ROMÉO ET JULIETTE DRAME LYRIQUE in five acts and a prologue Libretto JULES PAUL BARBIER & MICHEL FLORENTIN CARRÉ after WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
ORCHESTRA
2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo) 2 oboes (2nd doubling cor anglais) 2 clarinets / 2 bassoons 4 horns / 2 trumpets / 3 trombones timpani / percussion / 2 harps violin I / violin II / viola cello / double bass
WORLD PREMIÈRE 27 APRIL 1867 Théâtre-Lyrique, Paris (first version) 20 JANUARY 1873 Opéra-Comique, Salle Favart, Paris (second version) 28 NOVEMBER 1888 Opéra, Salle Garnier, Paris (third version) PREMIÈRE AT THE HOUSE ON THE RING 30 MAY 1869 Vienna Court Opera DURATION
3H
INCL. 1 INTERMISSION
ROMÉO ET JULIETTE
SYNOPSIS Roméo, a member of the Montague family, bitter enemies of the Capulets, attends celebrations in the home of the Capulets in disguise. There he meets Capuletʼs daughter Juliette and falls in love with her. In the garden beneath Julietteʼs balcony he declares his love for her, and she returns his love. The couple resolve to marry. Friar Laurent marries the couple in secret, hoping by doing so to bring about a reconciliation between the two families. However, soon afterwards there is yet another quarrel in the streets of Verona. Julietteʼs cousin Tybalt challenges Roméo to a duel, which he initially declines for Julietteʼs sake. However, when Tybalt fatally wounds his friend Mercutio, Roméo draws his sword and runs Tybalt through. The Duke of Verona banishes him for his crime. One last time, Roméo visits Juliette in secret to bid her farewell. The next morning Capulet tells his daughter in the presence of Friar Laurent that she will have to marry Paris. However, Friar Laurent gives her a sleeping potion that will make her appear dead. Juliette collapses during the wedding ceremony and is laid to rest in the family crypt. Roméo does not receive a message telling him that Juliette is not really dead. He enters the Capulet family crypt and, believing Juliette to be dead, takes poison. At this moment Juliette awakens to find the dying Roméo at her side. When she realises what has happened, she stabs herself.
Previous pages: JAËL AZZARETTI as JULIETTE MASSIMO GIORDANO as ROMÉO
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KS ANNA NETREBKO as JULIETTE
ADRIAN MOURBY
AN ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH The glorious, Oscar-winning Miramax film Shakespeare in Love gives the impression that Romeo and Juliet sprang from an autobiographical passion that overwhelmed the titular English poet – and I’m sure many of us wish this had been the case. Its illusion helped garner the film a Best Picture Academy Award in 1999, something of a rarity for comedy. Shakespeare in Love would have us believe that after his early histories and the twin comedies – Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593) and Love’s Labour’s Lost (1594) – Will Shakespeare lacked inspiration until he fell in love with a young woman who auditioned in breeches to play Romeo of the house of Montague in this rapidly evolving new tragedy (1595). In fact this was no new and original work born out of an autobiographical love affair. The Warwickshire dramatist was adapting an existing Italian romance of the kind whose premise stretched back hundreds of years to beyond the Renaissance. Ovid’s Pyramus
and Thisbe (8 AD) and Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (c. 1380 AD) belong to the same widely available source material of doomed young love. One of the earliest references to the names of the Montague and Capulet families is from Dante’s Divina Commedia which mentions the warring Montecchi and Cappelletti in canto six of Purgatorio (c.1321). However, the earliest known direct source of the Romeo and Juliet narrative is a novella called Mariotto e Ganozza by the Sorrentine author Masuccio Salernitano (1476). Salernitano set his story in Siena and claimed its events took place in his own lifetime. His version of what became Shakespeare’s highly seminal story includes the warring factions, the secret marriage, the colluding friar, the civil affray where a prominent citizen is killed, Mariotto’s banishment, the forced marriage of our heroine, Ganozza plus the potion plot, and the crucial message that goes astray. But in Salernitano’s version, rather than the twin suicides in the family tomb,
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Mariotto is apprehended and beheaded and Ganozza dies of grief. Maybe that is what actually happened in Siena in the fifteenth century, but its denouement is nowhere near as emotionally satisfying as Shakespeare’s. Nearly 50 years later, in 1524 Luigi da Porto (1485–1529) adapted this short story as Giulietta e Romeo and included it in his Historia novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti (A Newly-Discovered History of Two Noble Lovers, 1531), published posthumously in Venice and giving us our first glimpse of two names that would echo down the centuries. Da Porto drew on Pyramus and Thisbe and elements of Boccaccio’s Decameron as well as Salernitano’s Mariotto e Ganozza. It is also possible that his version has an autobiographical element. Da Porto claimed he was a soldier present at a ball on 26 February 1511, at a residence of the Savorgnan clan in Udine, near Venice. That day a peace treaty had been signed between the Strumeri and the Savorgnas but at the celebratory event da Porto fell in love with Lucina ( Juliet), a Savorgnan daughter. The families’ mutual animosity called an abrupt halt to his courtship of Lucina Ganozza and the next morning, the insulted Savorgnans attacked the Strumeri, leaving many dead. Years later, still half-paralysed from a wound he received that morning, Luigi da Porto wrote Giulietta e Romeo, dedicating the novella to the bellissima e leggiadra (the beautiful and graceful) Lucina Savorgnan. A translation of this seminal text, The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet was published in English by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter
in 1567. Thirty years later Shakespeare borrowed extensively from all these writers but expanded the original plot he received from Brooke and Painter by developing a number of supporting characters, in particular Romeo’s closest friend Mercutio and Juliet’s cousin Tybalt. The resulting duel between Mercutio and Tybalt in act 3 hastens the catastrophic loss of young life in this story. Shakespeare also built up the character of Juliet’s bawdy nurse for comic relief. The play was very popular in Shakespeare’s time and after the Restoration of King Charles II (1660) when London theatres were reopened it was often presented in revised versions. Directors William Davenant in the 17th century and David Garrick in the 18th modified several scenes, removing material then considered indecent. Thomas Otway’s adaptation of 1679, which was the longest running version of the play, post-Restoration was renamed The History and Fall of Caius Marius and set the action in ancient Rome. Shakespeare’s lovers were renamed Marius and Lavinia and the play placed greater emphasis on the political issues of a divided state. Opera came on board in 1776 with Georg Benda’s Romeo und Julie a German singspiel in three acts that omitted much of the original action in order to achieve a happy ending. Thankfully 19th century performances, including those directed by the American actress Charlotte Cushman, restored the original text and focused on greater historic and emotional realism. By 1935 Sir John Gielgud’s London production kept very close to Shakespeare’s verse and used Elizabethan costumes.
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ADRIAN MOURBY
Despite many vicissitudes to appease contemporary taste, Romeo and Juliet never fell out of fashion. Its equation of love and death has proved powerful for generations. The accidental slaying of Mercutio when Romeo tries to save him, Romeo’s guilt-frenzied killing of Tybalt, the bedroom aubade of two teenage lovers, the unfortunate death of decent Count Paris who happened to be in the wrong tomb at the wrong time, the lachrymose suicide of Romeo and the quasi-sexual suicide of Juliet – screaming “Death here is thy sheath!” – create a world in which the twin impulses of Eros and Thanatos are a hair’s breadth apart. Unsurprisingly, today not only is Romeo and Juliet one of Shakespeare’s most performed plays but it is continually being revisited and reinvented. Shakespeare himself was one of the first to revisit the subject of starcrossed lovers only one year later in his A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1596). Here, not only are the lovers, Lysander and Hermia frustrated by the decision of Hermia’s father to marry her off to someone of his choosing (whom she does not love) but the couple decide to flee Athens together, just as Romeo and Juliet determined to flee Verona. But in doing so they encounter in the Athenian Forest the amateur actors who are rehearsing one of Shakespeare’s sources for Romeo & Juliet, The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe. Fortunately, the forest faeries who rescue the lovers, deliver them to Duke Theseus who is persuaded to clemency by his new bride, Hippolyta. (Hermia’s father was demanding the death of his daughter for choosing Lysander over Demetrius but he is mercifully over-
ruled). Then the melodramatic “most lamentable comedy” is performed as a finale to this play which, one year after Romeo and Juliet consolidates Shakespeare’s tragic masterpiece by turning it into badly acted comedy. Not surprisingly at least 24 operas have been based on Romeo and Juliet since Benda’s 1776 singspiel. The bestknown is Gounod’s 1867 Roméo et Juliette (libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré), a critical triumph when first performed in Paris and frequently revived today. Bellini’s earlier I Capuleti e i Montecchi (1830) is also revived from time to time but has often been judged unfavourably because of its perceived liberties with Shakespeare’s text. To be fair Bellini and his librettist, the great Felice Romani, worked from Italian sources – principally Romani’s libretto for Giulietta e Romeo by Nicola Vaccai – rather than directly adapting Shakespeare’s play. Among the more commendable later operas, is Heinrich Sutermeister’s 1940 work Romeo und Julia which follows the play closely but concludes with a final scene in which a celestial chorus celebrate the union in death of the two lovers. Prokofiev’s masterful ballet music for Romeo i Dzhulyetta (1935) and Tchaikovsky’s lyric concert Overture Fantasia (1870) are two of the most popular instrumental versions of the story with Tchaikovsky’s timpani roll at the very end said to reflect his rage that the two households of Montague and Capulet should dare to be reconciled after so much loss of young life. Less familiar works include Roméo et Juliette by Berlioz, a „symphonie dramatique“ in three parts for mixed voices, chorus, and orchestra, which premiered in 1839.
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And in 1901 the English composer, Frederick Delius completed A Village Romeo and Juliet, the fourth of his six operas. The libretto was not directly based on Shakespeare but on the short story Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe by the Swiss author Gottfried Keller. In this case the lovers are the offspring of two feuding farmers. But the choice of the names of the lovers only reinforces its debt to Shakespeare. The play has frequently influenced popular music, including works by The Supremes, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Lou Reed and Taylor Swift. Perhaps the most famous of these indirect tributes is Dire Straits’ Romeo and Juliet (1981). Juliet, when we made love, you used to cry You said, „I love you like the stars above, I’ll love you ’til I die“ There’s a place for us, you know the movie song When you gonna realise, it was just that the time was wrong? But the most famous adaptation of Romeo & Juliet is undoubtedly – and deservedly – West Side Story with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a very important book by Arthur Laurents. Laurents’ plot updated the setting to mid-20th-century Manhattan and turned the warring families to feuding ethnic gangs. West Side Story débuted on Broadway in 1957 and has twice been adapted as a film – in 1961 and 2021. Laurents’ New York world gets rid of all the adults except clod-hopping cops and Doc, a Friar Laurence café owner figure who tries to calm down the young hoodlums. In the Spielberg remake (2021) Doc is replaced by his
aged widow, Valentina and the optimistic 1961 anthem “Somewhere” of Tony (Romeo) and Maria ( Juliet) is re-assigned to Valentina as a feeble prayer for greater tolerance as the west side of Central Park is demolished by developers. The greatest innovation that Laurents brought to Shakespeare’s original was to dispense of the idea of “ill-fated” lovers. This Romeo and Juliet do not die because a reassuring letter from Friar Laurence to Romeo in exile is late arriving – a fundamental plot weakness in the original and its sources. They die because the message that Anita (the confidante of Maria/Juliet) brings to Tony/Romeo that Maria is safe is never delivered. And the reason for that is that Tony’s gang try to rape her and in revenge she spits out “Tell Tony, Chino found out and he killed her.” A story as powerful as Romeo and Juliet should never hang on a late postal delivery. Laurents also tightened up the emotional plot by turning Tybalt, a thuggish cousin obsessed with Capulet family honour into a much-loved elder brother, Bernardo whom Maria/Juliet truly mourns after Tony/Romeo kills him. In 1996 Jonathan Larson’s contemporary Broadway musical Rent was a big success. Set in New York’s East Greenwich, it was referred to as a “Romeo and Juliet” story because of the almost death of the lovelorn heroine but it was based primarily on La bohème by Giacomo Puccini rather than Shakespeare. Nevertheless, the “Romeo & Juliet” reference is telling. Even the great Puccini cannot knock Shakespeare off his pedestal as the creator of the world’s archetypal lovers.
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ADRIAN MOURBY
Baz Luhrmann revisited the subject of doomed, youthful love in his brilliant film musical Moulin Rouge although the narrative parallels are closer to Dumas’ La Dame aux Camélias and Luhrmann himself claimed to have drawn parallels with the myth of Orpheus and Euridice. Shakespeare’s original has been adapted to film in versions as diverse as George Cukor’s US somewhat static Romeo and Juliet (1936) with English Leslie Howard and Canadian Norma Shearer as the un-youthful lovers and Basil Rathbone, the British army’s former champion swordsman as Tybalt. Then there was Franco Zeffirelli’s superb Italian al fresco production (1968) that sacrificed poetry for passion with Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey (both of whom subsequently tried to sue Paramount Pictures because of brief flashes of buttock and nipple in the act 3 bedroom scene). And Baz Luhrmann’s punk rock Romeo + Juliet (1996) which starred a baby-faced Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. This version was set in a US gun-toting, dystopian city called Verona Beach with “Captain Prince” trying to keep the peace between two warring punk mafiosi families. More recently Carlo Carlei’s Romeo and Juliet (2013) was written by Julian (Downton Abbey) Fellowes and follows Shakespeare’s plot – but sadly uses too little of his dialogue. The play’s emphasis on teenage rather than adult sexuality has also encouraged directors to explore a gay subtext. In Zeffirelli’s 1968 there is much footage to support the interpretation that the prince’s cousin, Mercutio ( John McEnery) is in love with Romeo and thus his mad Queen Mab speech and
his reckless defending of Romeo from Tybalt (Michael York) – something that costs him his life. Even more explicit is the American play Starcrossed (2019) by Rachel Garnet in which Tybalt of the House of Capulet and Mercutio (an ally of the House of Montague) are secretly lovers in 16th century Verona, doomed to mutual destruction because of their public loyalties. Recently the juke box musical & Juliet (2019) looks at the implications of Juliet surviving Romeo’s suicide and her struggles to reintegrate into a non-binary world. My own short story Whatever Happened to Romeo? (Sou venir Press, 1997) dealt with Rosamund’s exasperation that a middle-aged Romeo was still obsessed with teenage Juliet, the only woman who had ever died for him. The enduring appeal of Romeo and Juliet – something to which all these productions and adaptations attest – is the crazy, poignant thwarting of youthful optimism, gay or straight, by the ancient grudges of older men. In every version and every production there is a sense halfway through that the union of these two, blindly-sexed youngsters might undo the damage that generations have senselessly inflicted on each other. Another appeal is the way that the young generation get on with trying to sort out their world with very little adult assistance. Though Shakespeare’s original has Montague and Capulet having to meet with the Duke to discuss the recent civil affrays, his youngsters essentially resolve matters their own giddy way which means that the narrative bowls along even if it is towards assured destruction.
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In West Side Story no-one has parents, not even (in the Spielberg version) a single line delivered off stage by Ma-
ria’s father, making Bernstein’s masterpiece the ultimate, timeless anthem for doomed youth.
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Next pages: STEFANIA BONFADELLI as JULIETTE
CHARLES GOUNOD Charles François Gounod was born on 17 June 1818 in Paris. He came from an artistic family and studied at the Conservatory, including counterpoint with Halévy, composer of La Juive. When he was just 22, he won the coveted Prix de Rome and with it a multi-year scholarship in Rome. In 1842 he spent several months in Vienna, where his masses were performed at the Karlskirche. After returning to Paris, Gounod toyed with the idea of becoming a priest. He signed his letters “Abbé Gounod.” In 1848 the singer Pauline Viardot persuaded him to abandon his idea of a life in the church and introduced him to theatre. He composed his first operas for her. His first work for the stage was Sapho, which was performed in 1851. In 1852 he married Anne Zimmermann, the daughter of a pianist and teacher at the Conservatory. That same year, he was appointed director of “Orphéon de la Ville de Paris”, an outstanding male chorus. In addition to church music, Gounod wrote incidental music to Molière’s Le bourgeois gentilhomme and Ponsard’s Ulysse. His Méditations sur le premier prélude de Bach – arranged for violin, piano and organ in 1852 and published in 1857 as Ave Maria for solo voice, choir and large orchestra – was tremendously popular. His operas La Nonne sanglante
(1854) and Le médecin malgré lui (1858) did not enjoy the same success. In 1855, Gounod made the acquaintance of his future librettists Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. With Faust, which premièred in 1859 at the Théâtre-Lyrique, he wrote the work that was to bring him international fame. His subsequent works for the stage were not successful: Philémon et Baucis (1860), La Reine de Saba (1862), Mireille (1864) and La Colombe (1866). In April 1865 Gounod travelled south to Saint-Raphaël to work on his next project, the opera Roméo et Juliette. “I have moved into a small house ... and I am very happy working here.” He wrote very quickly, until illness caused him to return to Saint-Cloud, where he then completed the work. The orchestration of Roméo was finalised in July 1866, and the piece was submitted to the leading lady, Madame Carvalho. On 27 April 1867 this new opera was performed at the Théâtre-Lyrique and was a huge success for Gounod. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 forced Gounod to leave Paris. He moved to London, where he founded a choral society that evolved into what is now the Royal Choral Society. In London, he met the singer Georgina Weldon, who published his autobiography in 1875. His family returned to Paris in 1871 (his son Jean was born in
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1856, his daughter Jeanne in 1863). In 1875 his friends persuaded him to return to France too. He and Georgina Weldon went their separate ways, and Gounod wrote mostly sacred works. While working on his second Requiem, Charles Gounod suffered a stroke and died in Saint-Cloud on 18 October 1893. His state funeral took place ten days later.
ROMÉO ET JULIETTE AND ITS COMPOSITION Unlike other settings of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Barbier and Carré followed the original closely. Despite the fact that they adhered to Shakespeare’s text, dramaturgical gaps were inevitable because of necessary cuts. For example, the exposition has significant omissions: it is unclear how Juliette learns that Tybalt has been mortally wounded in his fight with Roméo. We also do not know how Roméo finds out about Juliette’s apparent death. In addition, the opera has a strong religious bias. In act 3, Gounod inserted a church wedding that was merely hinted at in Shakespeare’s original play. The opera has a religious undercurrent throughout, culminating in an appeal to God for forgiveness (“Seigneur, pardonnez-nous”). As a drame lyrique and as an “inside view of private tragedies” (Carl Dahlhaus), the work dispenses with the large tableaux, mass gatherings and historical events that had been common in Grand opéra since Giacomo Meyerbeer and concentrates instead on private conflict. Accordingly, the heart of the piece is the lovers’ four major duets: “Ange adorable” in act 1 when the two first meet, “O nuit di-
vine je t’implore” in the balcony scene in act 2, “Va ! Je t’ai pardonné” in act 4 when the lovers part after their night of love, and “Dieu ! Quelle est cette voix” as death nears. Various reminder motifs, including a kind of love motif, musically create the dramaturgical link. For example, at the end of the opera when Juliette sings the words “Ô joie infinie et suprême de mourir avec toi”, expressing her joy at being able to die with Roméo, the fortissimo motif that accompanied Roméo’s decision to risk death and stay with Juliette until daybreak is heard again, this time pianissimo, reminiscent of their night of love. In contrast to Faust, very few arias in Roméo et Juliette became “hits”: Mercutio’s “Ballade de la reine Mab”, Juliette’s waltz arietta (Gounod added this aria later as a concession to Madame Carvalho) and Stéphano’s chanson “Depuis hier je cherche mon maître.” By refraining from portraying the story that led to the private tragedy (at least in terms of music-drama, the family feud is immaterial), Gounod furthered the development of French opera from historical depiction to psychological drama which culminated in the works of Jules Massenet as its most important representative. Roméo et Juliette, sung at the première by Caroline Carvalho and Pierre Jules Michot, was Gounod’s last major stage success. For the most part, reception by the press was enthusiastic: “Faust has found its equal. The Roméo compositions by Bellini and Vaccai no longer exist and will vanish for ever in the shadows.” (Henri Moreno, in: Le Ménestrel, 4 May 1867). The work’s success outside France was helped by the fact that Paris was flooded with foreigners visiting the 1867 Ex-
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position Universelle. In the year of its première, the work was performed over 100 times at the Théâtre-Lyrique. In 1867, Her Majesty’s Theatre in London was the first non-French theatre to perform the opera in Italian (with Adelina Patti). Milan, Brussels and Dresden followed that same year. When the Théâtre-Lyrique closed its doors the following year, Gounod was forced to offer his opera to another theatre. From London, he commissioned Georges Bizet to rearrange the work for the Opéra-Comique. The most no-
table change in this second version was the conclusion of act 3, where the intervention of the Duke of Verona is deleted. This performance was a sensation for the Opéra-Comique as it was the first work performed without spoken dialogue. This version of the work was performed almost every year until 1887. For the third version at the Opéra, Gounod reinserted the Duke’s appearance, and also a ballet, as the tradition of the theatre required. Roméo et Juliette was performed more than 600 times at the Opéra.
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ROLANDO VILLAZÓN as ROMÉO
G AV I N P L U M L E Y
SPANNING THE DIVIDE RIVALRY AND REPERTOIRE IN GOUNOD’S PARIS Parisian culture and politics were inseparable during the 1860s. By the time Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette received its first performance at the city’s Théâtre-Lyrique on 27 April 1867, opera had become a matter of significant competition. Previously, the Opéra – officially, the Académie Royale (or Impériale) de Musique – enjoyed a nigh monopoly, though rival companies had emerged to challenge its status quo. That these changes occurred in tandem with transitions in society, lurching violently from ancien régime to revolution, republic to empire, only served to complicate matters of taste and theme, individuality and intent. Identity politics were therefore endemic to the lyric arts in France throughout the 19th century, with Roméo et Juliette one of the products of these changes. With its five acts, antique setting and integrated dance scenes, as well as a significant role for chorus and the use of recitative (initially dialogue), Gounod’s greatest success after Faust (1859) employed elements that were,
on the surface, associated with Grand opéra. The genre, often parodied, involved historical plots, large casts, sumptuous production values and complex stage machinery. Gioachino Rossini’s Le Siège de Corinthe (1826) and Daniel Auber’s La Muette de Portici (1828) were the precursors of the Grand opéras that typified the reign of Louis-Philippe (1830–48). Chief among the genre’s proponents were Giacomo Meyerbeer (Robert le diable, Les Huguenots and Le Prophète) and Fromental Halévy (La Juive, La Reine de Chypre and Charles VI) who helped forge a subtle allegorical link between theatrical historicism and contemporary socio-political issues, including monarchical legitimacy, all the time serving and, indeed, challenging an increasingly affluent bourgeoisie. The works that emerged during the early days of Louis-Philippe’s “July Monarchy” provided the model for later adopters of the craze, including Gaetano Donizetti with La Favorite, Les Martyrs and Dom Sébastien, all of
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which were seen at the Opéra during the 1840s, and Giuseppe Verdi’s Les Vêpres siciliennes, first performed in 1855. Following Rossini’s example, these two Italians found a particularly fruitful base in Paris, and not only at the Opéra but also at the fittingly named Théâtre-Italien (operative until 1878). But this was also the period in which the young Gounod emerged, with Sapho in 1851 and La Nonne sanglante in 1854, an openly Meyerbeerian piece that attempted, and not entirely successfully, to seize the gothic mantel of Robert le diable. By the time Gounod’s works had their respective premieres at the Opéra, the political identity of France had changed not once but twice more, following the Revolutions of 1848 and the advent of the Second Empire four years later. For the composer, the insurrection may well have influenced his decision to abandon priestly ordination. And while Gounod’s Catholic faith would endure, his subsequent move from the seminary to the salon, where he was embraced by the influential Viardot family, was a risk worth taking. Unlike avowed radicals, such as Hector Berlioz and Jacques Offenbach, to say nothing of Wagner, Gounod’s flair for elegance and balance was immediately suited to the aesthetics of Napoleon III’s post-revolutionary rule, dominated as it was by Baron Hausmann’s stylish new boulevards and, eventually, the building of the Palais Garnier. When the construction team for the “Nouvel Opéra de Paris” broke ground in August 1861, it was clear to all Parisians that the lyric arts were to remain central to the city’s identity. Yet if Charles Garnier’s eclectic historicism
looked to an imagined Baroque-cumRenaissance-cum-Classical past, much like the contemporary Ringstrasse and Hofoper in Vienna, it did not betoken the works that would eventually be performed within. Indeed, the 14 years that marked the building’s construction – the period in which Faust and Roméo et Juliette gained significant footholds in the repertoire – was one of even greater heterogeneity and rivalry. To understand the breadth of musical endeavour in Paris during the 1860s it is crucial to separate the various companies and venues, as well as the genres invoked and the musical minds at play. While Garnier’s grand statement of faith was being built, opera remained a peripatetic concern. The Opéra had been resident at the Salle Le Peletier since the 1820s and would remain there until it was destroyed by fire in 1873. With a capacity of 1,954, the opera house was the largest in the city. Nonetheless, it had significant competitors in the form of the Théâtre de l’Opéra-Comique (resident at the Salle Favart) and the Théâtre-Italien, as well as boulevard venues such as the Variétés, the PalaisRoyal and the Bouffes-Parisiens, all of which were home to Offenbach. More than any of these venues, the Théâtre-Lyrique was the most crucial for Gounod, providing a platform for both Faust and Roméo et Juliette. Like all Parisian companies, it went through several iterations, yet it was the diversity of its repertoire that helped upend long-held perceptions, chiefly the elision of institution and genre. While exclusivity over certain works had been the preserve of the Opéra, thanks to edicts dating to Napoleon I, this was significantly contested by the
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Lyrique. Likewise, the company offered a home to works rejected by other companies, just as the contemporary Salon des Refusés exhibited paintings and works of sculpture deemed unfit by the more conservative Académie des Beaux-Arts. The periphery was quickly becoming the centre during the Second Empire. Founded in 1847 as the OpéraNational by Adolphe Adam, the Thé âtre-Lyrique first made its name by reviving established works in new versions, including Berlioz’s edition of Gluck’s Orphée and Verdi’s Parisian adaptation of Macbeth. But it was its directorship’s ability to nurture new talent that secured the company’s fame. Adam, of course, mounted his own operas, before the successive directorships of Léon Carvalho and Charles Réty fostered the early careers of Gounod and Georges Bizet. Fusing elements of Grand opéra – namely its literary and historical associations – with further developments in continuous musical forms, the Lyrique was able to foster its own aesthetic under Carvalho’s dramaturgically acute leadership. The success of any company in Paris may have been based on such individuality, though all needed to adapt to other trends, both at home and abroad. A swift account of the works mounted during the 1860s demonstrates the level of such a challenge. At one end of the spectrum, Grand opéra continued, with five-act works such as Gounod’s La Reine de Saba (1862), Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine (1865), Verdi’s Don Carlos (1867) and Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet (1868), all appearing at the Salle Le Peletier. Thomas also achieved success with his three-act Mignon (1866) at the
Opéra-Comique, likewise home to Offenbach’s Robinson Crusoé (1867), though the operetta composer’s greatest achievements during the 1860s – La Belle Hélène (1864), La Vie Parisienne (1866), La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867) and La Périchole (1868) – were performed at rival theatres. The juxtaposition of three contemporaneous works from this grand list is especially helpful in understanding the variety on offer at the time. While Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette typifies the literary tastes of the Lyrique – the theatre where Bizet’s Walter Scott adaptation La Jolie Fille de Perth and Gounod’s Occitan tragedy Mireille were also staged – Verdi’s Schiller-inspired Don Carlos donned the costume and customs of Grand opéra. After all, the Salle Le Peletier still demanded a five-act structure, a ballet and the use of recitative. La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein was at the other end of the spectrum, of course, and provided an even greater sense of variety and much bigger laughs when it was, like Roméo et Juliette and Don Carlos, performed during the Exposition Universelle of 1867, attended by the crowned heads of Europe. By bridging the significant generic differences within French opera, to say nothing of choosing the most famous tragedy of all time, Gounod provided a veritable showcase for his talents and those of the city in which he worked. At the very moment Paris was thronging with global visitors, his opera played to full houses, beginning a rapid conquest of theatres far and wide. Sadly, the Théâtre-Lyrique would not achieve such lasting success,
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going bankrupt in 1872. But Gounod was characteristically quick to adapt. Following the model of Faust, which had already transferred to the Opéra in a lavish new production, complete with ballet, in 1869, Roméo et Juliette found a new home at the Opéra-Comique. Again, Gounod smoothed transition of venue and genre, abbreviating the end of act 1 and making several changes to act 3. And when the work transferred again to the Opéra in 1888, now resident at the Palais Garnier, Gounod readapted the score, including the obligatory ballet. Given the political and artistic vicissitudes during the composer’s lifetime, it is a miracle that anyone was able to match local expectations. Born in 1818, in the immediate aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, Gounod nonetheless rose to the challenge. Yet even after Faust and Roméo et Juliette had achieved both local and international success, Paris was to suffer directly during the FrancoPrussian War, when Gounod and his family fled to Britain, followed by the establishment of a Third Republic. By the time of Gounod’s death in 1893, having survived Wagner by a decade, it was a very different world. Dominated by clerical and anti-clerical skirmishes, as well as the Dreyfus Affair and renewed threats of war, it was the era of Debussy, Puccini and Massenet, as well as other more daring figures waiting in the wings of a fractured, post-Wagnerian world. Throughout, Faust and Roméo et Juliette continued to hold their places
in the repertoire, even as Gounod’s celebrity dimmed and he failed to repeat earlier successes, writing works such as Cinq-Mars (Opéra-Comique, 1877), Polyeucte (Opéra, 1878) and Le Tribut de Zamora (Opéra, 1881). Nonetheless, his prior adaptability and assimilation of genres and forms ensured that, according to Debussy, he had come to represent French sensibilities before the advent of Wagnerism, which Gounod eschewed, and verismo, which he had predicted in Mireille. Nobody could be all things to all people, yet Gounod had both reflected and swayed Parisian demands during the 1860s. A dedicated follower of fashion, he had come to set the standard, as the critic and musicologist Camille Bellaigue opined in 1910: “More poetic and more profound than the Opéra comique of the day, Gounod’s opera was more intimate than Grand opéra. The latter was no genre for an artist. [...] Gounod is not a composer of bombastic spectacles, ceremonies and processions. Marguerite’s garden and Juliette’s bedchamber were his favoured refuges. He drove the crowds out of the cathedrals that composers such as Meyerbeer liked to fill. But what this music lacked in breadth, it made up in depth. [...] Rich in its own resources, it abounded in, teemed with, inner life.” By responding to the diversity and divisions of 19th-century Paris with impressive verve and mutability, Gounod ensured that Faust and Roméo et Juliette would be embraced whenever and wherever they are performed.
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Next page: KS ELĪNA GARANČA as STÉPHANO
CHARLES GOUNOD
“THERE’S ONLY ONE PLACE WHERE A COMPOSER CAN MAKE A NAME FOR HIMSELF: THE THEATRE”
HANS ULRICH BECKER
SHAKESPEARE’S ROMEO – AS IF WRITTEN FOR MUSIC When Fromental Halévy was awarded the Prix de Rome and in 1822 was undertaking the obligatory stay in Vienna associated with his prize, he had the opportunity to visit Beethoven and familiarise himself with the city of Vienna. At this point there is nothing in his work suggesting the future masterpiece La Juive (1835). Another Prix de Rome winner, Charles Gounod, stayed in Vienna in 1842/43 and as a student of Halévy had certainly been given his recommendations. He met Otto Nicolai and him self conducted at Vienna’s Karlskirche. Unlike Halévy, even at this young age the 24-year-old was already familiar with the literature that would establish his world fame: he had read Goethe’s Faust (in French translation) and had composed the first few scenes for Roméo et Juliette. Gounod’s interest in Shakespeare’s story was also piqued by other adaptations of the English playwright’s works, such as those that appeared in France when romantic Shakespeare adaptations were gaining traction (Stendhal’s Racine et Shakespeare, 1823-1825, tours by English theatre
companies, publication of translations, etc.). Two composers should be mentioned here. Although Hippolyte Chélard had little success with his Macbeth (1827) at the Paris Opéra, Rossini’s Otello (also in a French version from 1825) was able to achieve lasting success in Paris. Gounod heard Otello in about 1835. French interest in the Romeo story was evident from adaptations as straight plays and musical theatre as early as the 18th century, long before Shakespeare was rediscovered by the Romantic era. Jean-François Ducis (1733-1816), a member of the Académie française, presented his stage adaptation of Roméo et Juliette in 1772. In doing so, he effectively returned the story to France, where Shakespeare had found the source of his inspiration in Boisteau’s version of the successful novel la by M. Bandello (d. 1560), Bishop of Agen. Incidentally, the librettist for Rossini’s Otello also drew on Ducis and his version of Otello. We can identify the versions of the story that can be directly or indirectly linked to Gounod’s opera:
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SHAKESPEARE’S ROMEO – AS IF WRITTEN FOR MUSIC
a) J ean-François Ducis Roméo et Juliette (Play, Paris 1772) b) N icolas Dalayrac Tout pour l’amour ou Roméo et Juliette (Opéra comique, libretto: J. Monvel, Paris 1792) c) D aniel Steibelt Roméo et Juliette (Opéra comique, libretto: J. de Segur, Paris 1793) d) Nicola Zingarelli Giulietta e Romeo (Tragedia per musica, libretto: G. Foppa, Milan 1796) e) Nicola Vaccai Giulietta e Romeo (Opera, libretto: F. Romani, Milan 1825) f ) Vincenzo Bellini I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Tragedia lirica, libretto: F. Romani, Venice 1830) g) Hector Berlioz Roméo et Juliette (Symphonie dramatique, libretto: E. Deschamps, Paris 1839) Gounod had the opportunity to hear some of these versions of Roméo in Paris [e-g]; he stressed how impressed he was by Berlioz’s composition (including the Scherzo de la reine Mab). For his part, in a later publication Hector Berlioz emphasised the merits of Steibelt’s work [c], which he probably saw in Paris in 1822. There is good reason to assume Gounod’s previously mentioned early sketches were inspired by Zingarelli [d]. Zingarelli – Bellini’s teacher – was certainly more like Gounod, who also wavered between church music and opera, than Vaccai. The scene with Roméo and Juliette’s wedding is found only in Zingarelli and later in Gounod. Zingarelli’s librettist, Foppa, chose Ducis [a] as one of his sources,
but there are indications that he was also familiar with Monvel’s libretti [b]. The Paris Opéra provided Gounod with what was probably his last exposure to the source material before he began his own composition when they presented Roméo et Juliette in 1859; a French version by Charles Nuitter with music by Bellini and Vaccai, curiously enough with sets designed for Halévy operas (La Magicienne, Le Juif errant and others). Just a few months after Faust (with librettists Jules Barbier and Michel Carré) Gounod was reminded of his second great project: his adaptation of Roméo (which Berlioz said was “as if written for music”). Barbier and Carré, working concurrently on the libretto for Hamlet (1868) by Ambroise Thomas and the French version of Nicolai’s The Merry Wives of Windsor (1866), and with Verdi’s French version of Macbeth (1865) in mind, adapted another Shakespeare play for Gounod in 1864/66, namely Roméo et Juliette, this time not for the Opéra but for the Théâtre-Lyrique in Paris. Probably inspired by the Bellini opera performed in 1859, they also envisaged a trouser role: that of Stéphano (in Bellini it is Romeo). But their opera with music by Gounod, which premièred on 27 April 1867, was compared not only to Bellini’s version of the story; it also had to hold its own against Berlioz’s Symphonie dramatique of 1839 (which Wagner also studied while working on his Rienzi). Also not to be underestimated was the almost simultaneous introduction of Gounod’s opera and Offenbach’s La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein during the Exposition Universelle of 1867, which greatly facilitated the
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SHAKESPEARE’S ROMEO – AS IF WRITTEN FOR MUSIC
rapid spread of both works after their successful premières. While in his parody of Grand opéra, with processions and consecration of swords, Offenbach stuck to his concept (which on occasion even amused Maestro Meyerbeer in earlier works), audiences asked a different question of Gounod, the award-winning composer who had been popular since Faust: What is the future of French opera five years after Halévy’s death and two years after the posthumous première of Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine (especially since Rossini, long silent at this point, is now 75 years old)? Will Gounod continue the tradition of great, historical opera or strike out in a new direction? Significant here is certainly the often-unspoken wish to see a Frenchman become successful and influence style. This concept, which was foreign to Gounod and prevalent in more nationalistic circles, found fertile soil when Wagner sought the recognition of Paris opera audiences definitively, but initially unsuccessfully, with his Tannhäuser in 1861. Continuation or new direction? Had Meyerbeer and Halévy not already ventured into new subject matter (Meyerbeer with his Dinorah 1859, to a libretto by Barbier and Carré, and Halévy with La Magicienne, amongst others)? But Gounod goes even further: with Roméo et Juliette he moves away
from historical opera with a clearly defined context and political relevance (and a matching libretto; Meyerbeer fundamentally rejected material from world literature for his “artistic synthesis”! Halévy ventured once into Shakespeare with La Tempesta, 1850). In terms of source material, Rossini’s Guillaume Tell was also a setting of an internationally known story comprehensible to all, using symbols firmly entrenched in general awareness (e.g. the “apple” in Tell, the balcony in Roméo). However, Gounod opts for a more intimate approach for his opera, foregoing crowd scenes, in favour of psychological depth, especially for the female lead. He later went in different directions (without notable success after 1867), but younger composers such as Bizet and especially Massenet picked up on Gounod’s approach. In 1884 Massenet dedicated his Manon to Caroline Miolan-Carvalho, the first Juliette, and in so doing paid tribute to Gounod’s example. As a student of Halévy and admirer of Meyerbeer (in 1875 he wrote of his enthusiasm at the première of Le Prophète, and the Roméo/Juliette duet in act 4/1 is definitely reminiscent of the Raoul/Valentine duet in act 4 of Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots), Gounod was not exactly predestined to turn his back on Grand opéra.
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Next pages: SCENE
IVAN TURGENEV
“THE APPEARANCE OF A MUSICAL PERSONALITY SUCH AS GOUNOD’S IS SO RARE THAT ONE CANNOT WELCOME HIM HEARTILY ENOUGH”
MICHAEL JAHN
GOUNOD AND VIENNA – STEPS TOWARDS SUCCESS When on 5 February 1868, Gounod acknowledged the audience’s frenetic applause following the première in Vienna of Roméo et Juliette, which he conducted himself, this was probably the climax of the relationship between the composer and the Danube metropolis. It was 26 years earlier that Gounod had gained his first impression of Vienna. He first visited Vienna in the year 1842. The young composer travelled by steamboat from Venice to Trieste, where he boarded the stagecoach bound for Graz. It was here in Carinthia that he painted (as we read in his autobiography) “the jagged contours of the Carinthian mountains.” From there he travelled to Graz, then to Olomouc, from where he took the train to Vienna. The composer’s impression of the first “German” city he ever visited was an excellent one: “Vienna is a bustling city. As animated as they are, the Viennese are almost more French than German: they are a vivacious, always cheerful, good-natured and jovial people.” Gounod did not bring a single letter of recommendation for Vienna: he knew no one there. As soon as he could, he hurried over to the Court Opera (Kärntnertor Theatre)
and saw that Die Zauberflöte was being performed. “I bought a cheap seat, high up, which – however inadequate – I would not have given up for all the world.” Gounod was thrilled by the performance. Some of the Opera’s best performers were appearing that evening: Otto Nicolai was conducting, and of the singers Marie van Hasselt-Barth (Queen of the Night) and Josef Staudigl (Sarastro) made the most lasting impression. “The other roles were also excellently cast.” At his request, Gounod was introduced to the artists, but was unable to hold a meaningful conversation due to his lack of German. Thanks to a horn player in the orchestra who was fluent in French, Gounod made the acquaintance of the president of the orchestra association, Count Stockhammer. The count arranged for a performance at the Karlskirche of a mass Gounod had written during his stay in Rome; the performance made such an impression that he was immediately commissioned to write a requiem for All Souls’ Day. A single rehearsal was necessary to make the performance of the requiem (also in the Church of St Charles) an excellent one.
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The schoolboys were able to sing their parts easily from sight and made a particular impression on the composer. The requiem was such a success that a second commission for the Karlskirche (a vocal mass for Lent) was to follow. After completing this work, Gounod immediately left Vienna.
MARGARETHE (FAUST) Twenty years later, on 8 February 1862, Faust (then titled Margarethe) was Gounod’s first opera to be performed at the Kärntnertor Theatre. The composer attended this performance, which did not enjoy the expected success, but he did not conduct it himself. After the first two acts, the applause was somewhat half-hearted, but was more enthusiastic after the third act, which was generally considered the high point of the work. The reactions of music critics were also mixed. While some reviewers were outraged at the treatment of Goethe’s Faust as an opera libretto (they called it a “disgraceful piece of work” and “pure folly”), other critics were only offended by individual scenes, particularly the portrayal of Gretchen as a “passionate” woman in the finale of act 3. Although the management had done everything in their power to make the work a success (including casting the main roles), the audience’s enthusiasm was muted; only the popular tenor Alois Ander (as Faust) drew cheers. People even felt pity for Matteo Salvi, director of the Court Opera, because of the excessive cost of the production of Margarethe as it was assumed that the work would never be able to recoup these expenses. This was soon to prove a misjudgement, as the (long-lasting)
success of Margarethe had already set in with the third performance (on 12 February). Some cuts had been made (the première, with a running time of 3 hours, exceeded the norm for Vienna), the singers, including recognised celebrities such as Louise Dustmann (Margarethe) and Carl Schmid (Mephisto), grew more confident, and the audience now received the performance very warmly. Margarethe became a special “show-piece” in the Viennese opera repertoire.
ROMEO UND JULIE (ROMÉO ET JULIETTE) After Margarethe had been thrilling Viennese audiences for six years, the next Gounod première at the Kärntnertor Theatre in 1868 was eagerly awaited. The opera house’s best singers were again employed to perform the première of Roméo und Julie with adequate mastery, and this time the entire cast met the high expectations. Ilma von Murska, one of the leading coloratura sopranos of the day, was hired as Julie. She had made her début as Martha at the Court Opera in August 1864 and was a member of the house’s ensemble from 1865 to 1867. She had experienced her greatest success as Dinorah in the première of Meyerbeer’s work (1865), she performed Oscar in the German-language première of Maskenball (1866) and was the first Inès in L’Africaine (1866). Her signature roles were Lucia, Amina in Sonnambula and the Queen of the Night. By the time of the Romeo und Julie première, the artist had left the ensemble and was appearing at the Vienna Opera as a “guest.” With Gustav Walter, the Court Opera
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had an almost ideal performer for the role of Roméo. He had been in the ensemble since 1856, and the number of premières in which he took part was almost unmanageable. Whether Wagner (Walther von der Vogelweide 1858, Erik 1860), Lortzing (Baron Kronthal in Der Wildschütz 1860), Rubinstein (Die Kinder der Haide 1861), Schubert (Die Verschworenen 1861), David (Laila Rookh 1863), Meyerbeer (Vasco de Gama 1866) or Thomas (Wilhelm Meister 1868), Gustav Walter was always a valued interpreter of difficult tenor roles. He was also the first German-speaking Manrico in Troubadour (1859) and Richard in Maskenball (1866). For a long time, however, his true Fach remained that of the lyric tenor, hence his particular suitability for the role of Roméo. Nevertheless, this did not stop him from performing the roles of Walther von Stolzing (1870) and Loge (1878) in Vienna. The smaller roles were also exquisitely cast: Marie von Rabatinsky (Stephano) was hired by the house in 1866 and soon became Murska’s successor for coloratura roles. In 1871 she was the first Viennese Irene in Rienzi. Louis von Bignio (Mercutio), born in Budapest and hired there for the première of Erkel’s Bánk Bán (1861), was a member of the ensemble of the Vienna Court Opera from 1863 to 1883. His signature roles were Don Giovanni, Wilhelm Tell and Don Carlos (Ernani). The two leading basses of the ensemble, Hans Freiherr von Rokitansky (who enjoyed a brilliant career in Vienna from 1864 to 1893) and Carl Schmid, who was in the ensemble from 1855 until his death in 1873, played the roles of Brother Lorenzo and Count Capulet. The Duke of Verona was sung by
Franz Hrabanek (in 1859 Count Luna in the German-language première of Verdi’s Troubadour), Tybalt by Julius Prott, Benvolio by Julius Campe, Gertrude Ernestine Gindele and Count Paris by Angelo Neumann, who would later become famous as a theatre director. The scenery was designed by Imperial and Royal Court Theatre painters Carlo Brioschi and Theodor Jachimovicz, and the costumes by Franz Gaul. This excellent line-up contributed greatly to the audience’s enthusiastic reception of the work. The singers received well-deserved applause; Gounod was cheered. The composer proved to be a “skilled” conductor and was the focus of “multiple, sincere and heartfelt ovations, which were expressed in repeated curtain calls after each act and other expressions of approval.” The orchestra “outdid itself” and the choruses also deserved “unreserved praise.” The costumes were notable for their richness and historical fidelity, and the production demonstrated “mature taste.” Gounod himself was quoted in the reviews as saying that the performances of the Viennese singers and orchestra were far superior to those of the Parisians, and no one need be apprehensive about being compared with the première production. The reviewers were less impressed by the work itself. The most famous Viennese critic, Eduard Hanslick, stated years after the première that Romeo und Julie had been a decisive success in Vienna and continued to maintain its standing unabated. However, he added that it was clear that the Viennese audience was not as strongly and directly attracted to this music as they were to Gounod’s Faust. The main problem
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with Romeo und Julie was the extremely lyrical character of the work; some critics even went so far as to call Romeo und Julie a weaker counterpart to Faust. The orchestration received high praise as it never required the singers to force their voices; in fact, quite the opposite: Gounod had invented the “whisper opera“: “it is virtually impossible to let loose vocally in Romeo und Julie; the singer would be frightened by any of his own overly loud notes.” The singers were (almost) universally praised: Walter had no rivals to fear as Romeo, Rabatinsky was an excellent Page, von Bignio was just as good as Mercutio, Messrs. Schmid and Rokitansky were worthy representatives of the bass roles. The only negative comments were reserved for Murska. The role of Julie was too low for her, the waltz was the only high point of her performance, and the rest of the role lacked “feeling and passion.” This shortcoming was remedied when Bertha Ehnn appeared before the Viennese audience as Julie for the first time on 14 May 1868. The artist, who had made her début as Margarethe in Gounod’s opera at the Kärntnertor Theatre just a few months earlier (she remained in the service of the court opera until 1885), was not able to perform the waltz as effectively as her predecessor, but otherwise confirmed that she was by no means an understudy. Her expressive acting and „soulful“ sentiment set her apart from the première actress.
THE NEW COURT OPERA Ehnn and Gustav Walter performed the roles of the lovers when Romeo und Julie (with new sets) was introduced on 30 May 1869 as the second opera (after Don Giovanni) at the new, recently opened Opera House. Their singing was rated as “with distinction.” In the decades that followed, famous greats repeatedly appeared before the audience in Gounod’s works at the Vienna Court Opera. One of the celebrated Roméo performers was the respected tenor Georg Müller (ensemble member from 1868 to 1897). In the Italian season of 1876, the world-famous Adelina Patti shone in two Gounod operas: as Giulietta in Roméo e Giulietta and in the première of Mirella (Mireille). Her partner in both operas was Ernest Nicolini. In 1878, Philémon et Baucis was premièred with Bertha Ehnn and Messrs. Walter and Rokitansky, and in 1883, Le Tribut de Zamora (with Pauline Lucca). In 1909, when Roméo et Julie was revived under the direction of Wilhelm von Wymetal, the acclaimed Selma Kurz shone as Julie, Vernon Stiles was Roméo. It is striking that Roméo et Juliette became an extremely popular work at the Court Opera (the performance figures up to 1918 prove this), but never found its way into the repertoire of any other opera house in Vienna. With the new production in 2001, the State Opera performed the work in French for the first time in Vienna.
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EDUARD HANSLICK
I met Gounod in the summer of 1867 in Paris, where he lived in a charming house in the quiet rue de la Rochefoucauld. His reception room and salon are on the ground floor, while the first floor contains the actual family rooms. Delicate and sophisticated in his manner, with an open, intelligent physiognomy, Gounod makes a very winning impression. The medium-sized, strong and broadly built man with blond hair and a full beard seems more a German type than southerner. Only his dark, sparkling eyes are genuinely French.
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No one would guess that he is fifty years old. Gounod is not the type of taciturn, dreamy composer à la Schumann who only thaw out at the piano, but rather the lively, communicative type whose fluent eloquence and broad education make it easy to give an account of their aspirations and work. In this respect he is sometimes reminiscent of Richard Wagner. Despite his lively temperament, Gounod is a very serious individual, somewhat inclined to enthusiasm, who grasps the task of art from the highest vantage point and serves it with an almost religious fervour.
Previous pages: KS NEIL SHICOFF as ROMÉO STEFANIA BONFADELLI as JULIETTE
IMPRINT CHARLES GOUNOD
ROMÉO ET JULIETTE SEASON 2024/25 PREMIÈRE OF THE PRODUCTION 22 DECEMBER 2001 Publisher WIENER STAATSOPER GMBH, Opernring 2, 1010 Wien Director DR. BOGDAN ROŠČIĆ Music Director PHILIPPE JORDAN Administrative Director DR. PETRA BOHUSLAV General Editors SERGIO MORABITO, ANDREAS LÁNG, OLIVER LÁNG Design & concept EXEX Layout & typesetting MIWA MEUSBURGER Image concept MARTIN CONRADS, BERLIN (Cover) Printed by PRINT ALLIANCE HAV PRODUKTIONS GMBH, BAD VÖSLAU TEXT REFERENCES The synopsis, the text about Charles Gounod and the texts by Hans Ulrich Becker, Michael Jahn and Eduard Hanslick are taken from the 2001 première programme. The texts by Adrian Mourby and Gavin Plumley are original texts for the 2024 programme. ENGLISH TRANSLATION Andrew Smith. IMAGE REFERENCES: Axel Zeininger / Wiener Staatsoper GmbH (p. 5, 12-13, 17, 22, 36-37); Michael Pöhn / Wiener Staatsoper GmbH (p. 28-29) Reproduction only with approval of Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Dramaturgy. Holders of rights who were unavailable regarding retrospect compensation are requested to make contact. This production is sponsored by
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