Romeo and Juliet, by Charles Gounod, opens with a tableau showing the feud between the warring Capulets and Montagues. One ensemble member takes a swing at another, and both go down in an enthusiastic, if overacted display of stage violence.
It doesn’t get much better from there.
Part of the problem may be John Irvin’s Romeo. He has a pleasant tenor and certainly looks the part, but his acting lacks conviction in certain places and temperance in others. Irvin has potential, but perhaps would have been served by a little more attention to his acting.
Sidney Outlaw and Chris Carr, as Mercutio and Tybalt, perform creditably, but there isn’t quite enough of them to satisfy. However, their duel in Act Three is one of the few times that the stage fighting doesn’t seem choreographed.
The costumes for Romeo and Juliet were provided by Malabar Ltd., and clothe the Montagues in blue and Capulets in red and gold. Besides being a little facile for an opera that’s supposed to be about the pointlessness of hatred and feuding, it would be nice if the lighting didn’t turn the gold to a particularly ugly orange.
Emily Birsan (Juliet), however, is the glittering star of the show. She handles Gounod’s tricky arias with composure, and her soprano voice is clear and pure. She captures Juliet’s youth and tempers it with determination.
But the biggest issue is the writing itself. Gounod’s opera focuses almost solely on the lovers, to the exclusion of everything else. Without showing more of the feuding, the forbidden nature of Romeo and Juliet’s relationship is less believable. Gounod even cuts the final scene of Shakespeare’s play, where the two feuding families, filled with despair at the deaths of their children, reconcile with each other. Without that ending, the story of Romeo and Juliet isn’t about overcoming hatred. It’s about beautiful people dying. Without knowing that the lovers’ deaths aren’t in vain, what, I ask, is the point?
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