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Opera
07 March 2010 Reviewed by Dick O'Riordan
Roméo et Juliette
By Charles Gounod
Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, February 28 Probably the best compliment I can pay this Opera Ireland production of Gounod’s version of Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers is that it kept the audience riveted - even when it crept past 11pm.
This is because the closing stages of the tragedy produce some of the most magnificent arias in the entire opera, and the glorious flow of the lead singers captured the imagination almost as intensely as the rugby encounter at Twickenham earlier that day.
This production may not have got everything right, but its casting of French soprano Nathalie Manfrino as Juliette and American tenor Michael Spyres as Roméo was spot on.
Gounod chopped the plot to the bare essentials - the Montague-Capulet feud being downgraded so the demands on the lovers in singing terms was onerous, leaving not much for anybody else, except the excellent chorus.
Manfrino, whose sublime talent has seen her star in lead roles with the likes of Domingo, Villazón and Alagna (with whom she sang in Dublin), is regarded as one of France’s finest - so her performance was hardly a surprise. On the other hand, Spyres was a revelation and, though he did not match Manfrino in acting ability, his classical tenor voice radiated through the entire opera.
Other international artists such as Marcel Vanaud (Count Capulet) and Paolo Battaglia (Frere Laurent) excelled, while Irish artists Imelda Drumm (Stephano) and Nyle Wolfe (Paris)were not out of place in this company.
This opera is French ‘Victoriana’ in style - a bit disconcerting for those expecting ‘Italiana’- with Gounod’s sumptuous romanticism dominating.
The RTE Concert Orchestra, under French conductor Jérome Pillement, performed with laudable restraint. Director Anniliese Miskimmon, in her first assignment for Opera Ireland, was well up to the task - a good omen for further assignments for the innovative artistic director of Opera Theatre Company, when both companies merge into a National Opera Company.
Leslie Travers’ stage was, in turn, brilliant and bamboozling. An awful lot happened in a massive, moveable French cabinet, including the balcony and wedding scenes.
However, the massive backdrop of flaking wallpaper - through which people came and went - was lost on me.
Anyway, flaking wallpaper freaks me out, particularly at this time of year.
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