 | This is my post from this week's Once or Twice a Fortnight. |
Written in 1597, Romeo and Juliet is probably William Shakespeare’s most celebrated play, and his pair of lovers have become a myth. Over the centuries, Romeo and Juliet has inspired all kinds of music. There are songs, ballets, symphonic poems, Broadway musicals and film scores… I have two posts planned for OTF this month, and both share a common thread – the timeless love story of Romeo and Juliet, in a pair of depictions from French composers.
According to an article on the World of Opera website, there are hundreds of Shakespeare operas, including about two dozen based on Romeo and Juliet. But what makes Gounod's opera a rare bird? It's that it's an opera based on Shakespeare that's actually a hit. Astonishingly, of those hundreds only a few are still seen regularly on today's stages. And of all the "R & J" operas, Gounod's is really the only one that has stuck in the repertory.
When Gounod turned his attention to Romeo and Juliet in 1867 he'd already had a big hit with another adaptation -- an opera based on Goethe's Faust. So for Romeo and Juliet, he collaborated with the same librettists he worked with on the earlier opera: Jules Barbier & Michel Carré.
The two writers stuck fairly close to the original play by Shakespeare, though there are some changes. Barbier and Carré cut a few scenes that didn't deal directly with the two lovers. They also tweaked the ending. In the play, when Juliet finally awakens in the tomb, Romeo is already dead. When she wakes up in the opera, Romeo still has a few flickers of life -- enough for the two to sing a final duet before Juliet stabs herself and they die together.
The recording I chose, from the LiberMusica collection, is one of the last recorded documents of the Old Order at the Palais Garnier and, as such, an interesting historical artifact.
One reviewer (unkindly, you might say), points to the signing of one of my favourite tenors of the era, Quebec City’s Raoull Jobin pointing out that “his ‘Comment?’ to Mercutio in Act I situates him a lot closer to the Jardin des Ursulines in Trois-Rivières than the Place de l' Opéra.” Later adding that “[he loves] Janine Micheau's Juliette. […] She gives forth many ravishingly beautiful phrases in the more lyric parts, with that uniquely lovely, burnished voice of hers. “
Happy Listening
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-12430109-1535141144-4529.jpeg.jpg)
Charles-François GOUNOD (1818 –1893)
Roméo et Juliette (1867)
Opera in five acts , French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.
PRINCIPAL CAST
Le duc de Vérone André Philippe
Paris: Camille Rouquetty
Capulet: Charles Cambon
Juliette: Janine Micheau
Gertrude: Odette Ricquier
Thibaut: Louis Rialland
Roméo: Raoul Jobin
Mercutio: Pierre Mollet
Stéphano, a page: Claudine Collart
Grégorio André Philippe
Frère Laurent: Heinz Rehfuss
Choeurs et Orchestre du Théâtre National de l' Opéra de Paris
Arberto Erede, conducting
Recorded in Paris, 1953.
Synopsis – https://www.musicwithease.com/gounod...-juliet-2.html
Libretto – http://www.murashev.com/opera/Rom%C3...French_English
LiberMusica URL - https://www.liberliber.it/online/aut...o-et-juliette/
According to an article on the World of Opera website, there are hundreds of Shakespeare operas, including about two dozen based on Romeo and Juliet. But what makes Gounod's opera a rare bird? It's that it's an opera based on Shakespeare that's actually a hit. Astonishingly, of those hundreds only a few are still seen regularly on today's stages. And of all the "R & J" operas, Gounod's is really the only one that has stuck in the repertory.
When Gounod turned his attention to Romeo and Juliet in 1867 he'd already had a big hit with another adaptation -- an opera based on Goethe's Faust. So for Romeo and Juliet, he collaborated with the same librettists he worked with on the earlier opera: Jules Barbier & Michel Carré.
The two writers stuck fairly close to the original play by Shakespeare, though there are some changes. Barbier and Carré cut a few scenes that didn't deal directly with the two lovers. They also tweaked the ending. In the play, when Juliet finally awakens in the tomb, Romeo is already dead. When she wakes up in the opera, Romeo still has a few flickers of life -- enough for the two to sing a final duet before Juliet stabs herself and they die together.
The recording I chose, from the LiberMusica collection, is one of the last recorded documents of the Old Order at the Palais Garnier and, as such, an interesting historical artifact.
One reviewer (unkindly, you might say), points to the signing of one of my favourite tenors of the era, Quebec City’s Raoull Jobin pointing out that “his ‘Comment?’ to Mercutio in Act I situates him a lot closer to the Jardin des Ursulines in Trois-Rivières than the Place de l' Opéra.” Later adding that “[he loves] Janine Micheau's Juliette. […] She gives forth many ravishingly beautiful phrases in the more lyric parts, with that uniquely lovely, burnished voice of hers. “
Happy Listening
Charles-François GOUNOD (1818 –1893)
Roméo et Juliette (1867)
Opera in five acts , French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.
PRINCIPAL CAST
Le duc de Vérone André Philippe
Paris: Camille Rouquetty
Capulet: Charles Cambon
Juliette: Janine Micheau
Gertrude: Odette Ricquier
Thibaut: Louis Rialland
Roméo: Raoul Jobin
Mercutio: Pierre Mollet
Stéphano, a page: Claudine Collart
Grégorio André Philippe
Frère Laurent: Heinz Rehfuss
Choeurs et Orchestre du Théâtre National de l' Opéra de Paris
Arberto Erede, conducting
Recorded in Paris, 1953.
Synopsis – https://www.musicwithease.com/gounod...-juliet-2.html
Libretto – http://www.murashev.com/opera/Rom%C3...French_English
LiberMusica URL - https://www.liberliber.it/online/aut...o-et-juliette/
No comments:
Post a Comment