Program Notes
by Virginia Whealton
Although Charles Gounod’s Faust has proved to be his most enduringly popular opera, in his own day, Roméo et Juliette bestowed his greatest operatic triumph. Soon after its première, a correspondent of the London-based The Musical World wryly observed, “The majority of French critics assert that the new Roméo will not only snuff out all the other Roméos, but all of [Monsieur] Gounod’s operas to boot … to say nothing of snuffing out all other operas ever written.” Indeed, Roméo et Juliette was Gounod’s only opera to receive immediate acclaim and gain instant popularity, both in France and abroad. Nonetheless, Roméo et Juliette and Faust have affinities in their original performance milieux, particularly in their objective of retelling a familiar literary tale for Parisian opera audiences.
As with Faust, first staged in 1859, the music of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, premièred on April 27, 1867,reflects the tastes of the audiences and singers of Paris’s Théâtre-Lyrique. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was well known in France through multiple translations, but it had not appealed to composers there to the extent it had in Italy (Vincenzo Bellini’s I Capuleti ed I Montecchi of 1830 being one of the more notable Italian renditions to date). The celebrated librettist pair of Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, with whom Gounod collaborated extensively throughout his career, created a text that expanded the sentimental and romantic aspects of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, resulting in exactly the sort of drama in which the Théâtre-Lyrique specialized. The Théâtre-Lyrique was generally the least expensive of Paris’s four opera venues and attracted audiences who desired a captivating evening of entertainment but not necessarily a faithful and profound rendition of a literary masterpiece. Concomitantly, the librettists downplayed the theme of civil authority and the bitterness of the Montague-Capulet feud, which Shakespeare had embodied in the Duke and Tybalt, respectively. For a Parisian operatic libretto of its time, Roméo et Juliette nonetheless remains unusually close to its model. Significant deviations include the addition of Stéphano, Roméo’s page, who satisfied audiences’ expectations of a comic character; the marriage of Roméo and Juliette onstage, the religious overtones of which probably appealed to Gounod’s fervent Roman Catholic faith but which did not match the spectacle of the more conventional wedding tableau found in Act IV; and Juliette’s awaking from her drug-induced sleep before Roméo dies, allowing the dying lovers one last chance to poignantly express their passion together.
Gounod’s music helps create a romantic air while working within the exigencies of its original context, especially the conflicting demands placed upon him by performers, who generally wanted virtuosic numbers added, and directors, who wanted the opera to remain at a manageable length. Madame Caroline Miolan-Carvalho, the wife of the director of the Théâtre-Lyrique, sang the role of Juliette. The valse-ariette “Je veux vivre” of Act I likely reflects her demands for such virtuosic numbers (as had the famous “Air des bijoux” in Faust) rather than the librettists’ or Gounod’s own intent. More vital are the work’s four love duets—an unusually high number for an opera at this time but the perfect vehicle for showcasing Gounod’s dramatic strengths. In these pieces, Gounod matches and perhaps even surpasses the celebrated love duet of his earlier Faust in expression and drama. The beginning of “Madrigal à duex,” the first love duet between Roméo and Juliette (Act I), effectively conveys their newfound yet undeveloped love through a simple exchange of strophes set in the quaint style of the minuet and adorned with light arpeggiation in the violins. The passage ends with the lovers joining voices in sweet parallel sixths. The most intense outpouring of the lovers’ mutual affection comes not in the balcony scene, but in the opening duet of Act IV, in which Roméo and Juliette savor the last moments of their quickly fleeting wedding night as dawn approaches. Their entry is preceded by an orchestral introduction with a lush orchestration of four-part divisi celli, the lovers’ voices then intertwine in the varying textures of sixths (recalling their first love duet), imitation, and counterpoint. A gradual shift upwards in keys suggests the unrelenting advance of day, which Roméo and Juliette lament must necessitate their parting.
Roméo et Juliette quickly established itself in the Parisian operatic repertoire. Besides continued performances at the Théâtre-Lyrique, the opera also appeared at the other Parisian venues of the Opéra-Comique and the Opéra. For the latter, Gounod inserted ballet scenes to provide the necessary spectacle of a grand opéra. (The work had originally been envisioned as an opéra comique, although Gounod added recitatives before its 1867 première.) Abroad, it gained a foothold in Great Britain, where it was staged at Covent Garden within months of its first performance at the Théâtre-Lyrique, and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, where it remained part of the core repertory from its première in 1884 until World War I. Into the early twentieth century, the role of Juliette often served as a debut for emerging sopranos, including the fin-de-siècle American singer Emma Eames, whose recordings of Juliette’s valse-ariette “Je veux vivre” are considered to be among her finest work. By World War II, the popularity of the opera had waned, as had favor for French opera in general. Roméo et Juliette never completely disappeared from the repertory, garnering more than 100 performances at the Met during the second half of the twentieth century, but rarely being heard elsewhere. Tonight’s performance provides a valuable opportunity to experience both the tragedy of the quintessential literary pair of star-crossed lovers and the mindset of nineteenth-century opera-goers, who found that Gounod’s retelling of Shakespeare’s play offered the sentimental yet passionate drama they craved at its best.
