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OPERA REVIEW
Roméo et Juliette September 10, 2006
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Room for Improvement
By Scott MacClelland
What Shakespearean drama cries out for opera more than Romeo and Juliet? Even so, the most memorable music on the subject takes a variety of forms, from symphonic impressions (Berlioz and Tchaikovsky), to ballet (Prokofiev), and cinema (Rota). Although operas about the “star-crossed” lovers were penned by Zandonai, Zingarelli, Bellini (I Capuleti e i Montecchi), Blacher, and Sutermeister, it is Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette that wins by default.
While not a great opera, it has its moments. This fall, Opera San José debuts its new lineup of company resident artists — in two casts. On Sept. 10, it featured Talise Trevigne (Juliette), Isaac Hurtado (Roméo), Daniel Cilli (Mercutio), and returning company resident, Carlos Aguilar (Frère Laurent). Guest artists who etched imposing presences included Andrew Park (Tybalt), Sonia Gariaeff (Stephano), Silas Elash (Duke of Verona), and Mary Anne Stanislaw as Juliette’s nurse, Gertrude. The veteran maestro, Anthony Quartuccio, replaced conductor George Cleve, who was home recovering from an exhausting summer schedule.
For all his tunesmithing, Gounod’s rendition offers little that you can go home humming. There’s Juliette’s first-act waltz song, "Je veux vivre dans le rève," and Roméo’s cavatina "Ah ,leve-toi, soleil!" that opens the second act. But big tunes do not necessarily a drama make. Although Trevigne, whose path to OSJ started in Palo Alto, lacks the coloratura required by "Je veux vivre," she plainly asserted herself in the piece, and quickly won over the audience. In the last act, her “potion aria,” "Amour, ranime mon courage," proved to be the dramatic high point of the entire performance, a tour de force of anxiety, faith, fear, and resolve. Fortunately, the production preserved the entire scene even though some 40 minutes of the complete work (including the gratuitous ballet) were excised.
Drama left to be desired
The Tomb Scene was not the only place where the drama fell flat. When Juliette collapses under the spell of Frère Laurent’s death-imitating potion, just as she is about to wed the unloved Paris, neither a gasp of surprise, much less a raised eyebrow was proffered by the Capulets gathered around. At dawn, after Roméo and Juliette’s secret wedding-night, she begs him to stay, and he promises to defy death to do so. Almost immediately, she insists that he leave, in a rapid-fire sequence that set the audience to laughter. (The blame for that goes, in part, to the composer.)
Highlights of the performance include the chorus, a startlingly impressive force under the direction of Bruce Olstad; Mercutio’s (Cilli) teasing Queen Mab in scene in Act I; and Stephano’s (Gariaeff) coloratura challenge to the young Capulet hotheads, which opens the street scene in Act III. Stage direction by veteran dramatic soprano Olivia Stapp and assistant Laurent Martin fit the space well, even cleverly.
Yet some individual acting hovered between tentative and oblivious. The serviceable sets — consisting mostly of arches, columns, and two imposing stairways — went without design attribution, although the period costumes were provided by Malabar of Toronto. A swordsman pantomime behind a scrim (depicting San Marco Cathedral in Venice) during the overture must have looked better on paper. The final performance by this cast at the California Theatre is scheduled for Sept. 23 and the other cast performs on Sept. 21 and 24.
(Since 1978, Scott MacClelland has written music criticism and journalism for all the major newspapers on the Monterey Peninsula, and for the Metro papers in Santa Cruz and San Jose. During the same period, he has taught music history for Monterey Peninsula College. In recent years he has contributed articles to Strings magazine.)
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Talise Trevigne
