Canadian Opera Firm: Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. Amy Lane, director; COC Orchestra and Refrain, Yves Abel, conductor. Forged: Stephen Costello, Roméo; Kseniia Proshina, Juliette; Alex Hetherington, Stéphano; Gordon Bintner, Mercutio; Owen McCausland, Tybalt. October 8, 2025, 4 Seasons Centre, Toronto. Continues to October 18; tickets here.
‘The sunshine-minded Frenchman (…) who appears at each dramatic work firstly from the perspective of its outward results.’
Tchaikovsky was excoriating Ambroise Thomas and his Hamlet opera. However, he may as effectively have been describing Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. which was composed a 12 months or two earlier.
It might be good to say that historical past has proved Tchaikovsky incorrect — he may very well be an illiberal critic. However in reality, each operas share the identical crew of librettists — Jules Barbier and Michel Carré — and every is a stripped-down hackwork of a Shakespearean masterpiece.
As for the music, each are so over-sweetened they need to include a well being warning. Lastly, to Gounod’s beneficiant sprinkling, Amy Lane’s staging, first offered in Malmö, provides a complete additional layer of baked meringue. Cliché after cliché in libretto, music, and staging makes this an enervating three-hour sugar fest.
The Manufacturing
In her notes, Lane, who was additionally answerable for Gounod’s a lot superior Faust at COC final 12 months, explains her idea, whereby occasions are transported to New York of the Eighteen Eighties.
The Montagues are Italian immigrants attempting to settle, and the explanation for his or her feud with the Capulets is cash. Even had it labored, the concept would most likely have added little perception or redemption. However in apply, little of it got here throughout; some token early skyscrapers, maybe overlooking Central Park, and a mafioso go well with for Juliette’s father had been roughly it.
The opening act is ready as a cacophonic burlesque get together. The refrain are in colourfully lavish costumes (designed by Emma Ryott), with clown-cum-harlequin dancers stage entrance. As in Lane’s Faust staging, there isn’t a robust raison d’être for the dancers’ presence; neither is their choreography notably attention-grabbing.
At instances it appears like she is attempting to distract us from the admittedly not terribly distinguished music — why precisely Rely Capulet (a resonant if not fairly vocally even Mark Stone) ought to strip to a corset and fishnets remained a thriller, although it does increase some faint titters.
Performances
Kseniia Proshina’s Juliette actually seemed the half, which is in no way all the time the case with operatic Juliettes. Vocally she is sweet-toned and delicate, however with out the radiance that aficionados may count on from the one memorable tune of the opera, her Act 1 ‘Je veux vivre’.
Nor was she completely helped by the awkward staging — positioned at instances on an elevated platform and backed by dancers making foolish actions, even after her faux loss of life. Stephen Costello’s Romeo, a great much less believable as a teen, had the required energy and stamina for Gounod’s high-tessitura writing, however scored much less extremely for tenderness.
By the third act, Lane appeared to have run out of concepts. However, she nonetheless managed to place Friar Laurence — a priest — in a laboratory coat, and to position a cupboard of potions centre-stage within the scene of the lovers’ secret wedding ceremony.
In the meantime, a lot of the performing was as flat because the phrases had been trite, at instances even surpassing them for blandness. Romeo’s description of morning lights had no impact on the complete moon that dominated every scene. A starrier forged, some fierier chemistry, and stronger route may conceivably have saved the day.
However, the temporary second of pseudo-hallucination following Juliette’s imbibing was too complicated to make a lot affect.
Proshina and Costello had been backed by a dependable supporting forged: Owen MacCausland’s Tybalt particularly impressed together with his free-flowing tenor. Gordon Bintner’s Mercutio was larger-than-life, and Alex Halliday’s Duke introduced a contact of superior vocal class, regardless of his position being so misplaced in Lane’s staging that she discovered no higher answer than having him stabbed to loss of life.
The orchestra beneath the baton of Yves Abel took some time to settle on the efficiency I attended however provided plush colors and harmonies thereafter.
Remaining Ideas
Roméo et Juliette had been absent from the Canadian Stage for over 30 years. I doubt whether or not many could be unhappy if it takes one other 30 to return, until COC can up its recreation and produce us a first-class manufacturing.
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Michelle Assay is a Marie Curie/UKRI World Fellow on the Universities of Toronto and King’s Faculty London engaged on Ladies and Western Artwork Music in Iran (Womusiran.com). She holds a PhD from the Sorbonne and College of Sheffield and has been a Leverhulme Fellow on the College of Huddersfield. She is the writer of award-winning articles on Russian and Soviet music and on Shakespeare and music, and recurrently seems in live shows as a pianist. She is an everyday broadcaster for the BBC and contributor to Gramophone, Worldwide Piano, and Bachtrack, together with Ludwig Van.
