Preview
ROMEO AND JULIET
Calgary Opera
Starring Marc Hervieux and Kathleen Brett
Music by Charles Gounod
Directed by Diana Leblanc
Conducted by Robert Dean
Runs November 22, 26 and 28
Jubilee Auditorium
Byline: TIM CHRISTISON
CUTLINE: Family feud – Aaron St. Clair Nicholson (l) plays Mercutio and Kurt Lehmann is Tybalt in Calgary Opera’s season-opening production of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet
PHOTO CREDIT: Wil Andruschak
Romeo and Juliet, the tragic story of star-crossed teenage lovers and their feuding families, remains one of the most popular love stories ever. In fact, many consider it the greatest love story in western literature. So it’s quite a challenge to make it seem new.
However, Diana Leblanc is aiming to give "freshness and immediacy" to Calgary Opera’s production of Charles Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet.
"I want it to have a freshness that reminds us why we continue to be attracted to this story and to opera," she says.
Leblanc, a veteran stage director, made her debut at Calgary Opera last year with Dialogues of the Carmelites, which proved a major success. For that production, she didn’t just rely on her education with Carmelite nuns, but also did extensive research into the period and conducted interviews with practising Carmelites. For Romeo and Juliet, she made similar preparations by re-visiting the opera’s source, Shakespeare’s play – one of many shows she has directed at the Stratford Festival.
"I wanted to really know the play, which lines and moments moved Gounod to compose his music," she says.
The composer’s librettists, Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, focused keenly on Shakespeare’s love story, retaining some of his powerful images and words but eliminating or diminishing some major characters. For example, the four parents in Shakespeare’s play are condensed into Lord Capulet for the opera, and the nurse is not as prominent a role. Leblanc has introduced the nurse into early scenes, where she is silent, and with this theatrical choice, makes the point that she is "prime in Juliet’s circle."
At the same time, the opera has an additional character, Stephano, a page and friend to Romeo. This trouser part (in which a woman, in male attire, sings a male character) is being sung for Calgary Opera by mezzo-soprano Michelle Sutton. As staged by Leblanc, she will appear in scenes long before taking centre stage to sing one of Gounod’s lushly lyrical arias.
Such choices are intended to make the opera easy to follow and highlight Gounod’s strength in symbolizing a story’s emotional core. Romeo and Juliet’s story inspired him to use his Romantic and Gallic aspects to embroider an already rich story with exceptionally colourful music.
"The music is a step beyond sentimental to rapturous, (it is) gloriously lyrical," says Leblanc. "It is achingly beautiful, full of unmet needs, of a love that cannot survive – only death will make it perfect. That is the raison d’être of opera – to transcend words and translate emotions into music."
Leblanc is one in an increasing number of theatre directors who do double-duty in opera as well. As a stage director – not just at Stratford, but also with Toronto’s Théâtre Français and Soulpepper companies – she brings a wealth of experience to the task. For Romeo and Juliet, she says she has given her singer-actors many choices and urged them not to do "opera poses or stand-and-deliver."
Her direction must help create a compelling and believable world around Romeo and Juliet and their heartbreaking story – one where we can be entranced by Romeo’s final aria in which he comforts Juliet by telling her their love was too beautiful to last.
"I hope to not only be true to the music, along with the maestro, Robert (Dean), but to allow the music’s full impact to happen," says Leblanc. "I would hope that the music comes out of such emotional intensity (that) the characters can only sing." As she speaks, she makes graceful gestures, as if the music was lifting the singers to the heavens. |
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