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News and notes from the world of classical music.

Roméo et Juliette | Metropolitan Opera

A scene from Gounod's Roméo et Juliette.
Ken Howard
/
Metropolitan Opera
A scene from Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. "

Sat., May 5 at 1pm on WKAR Radio 90.5 FM | The sweeping tragedy returns with Ailyn Pérez and Bryan Hymel, both celebrated in French repertoire, as the star crossed young lovers and Plácido Domingo conducts.

Perhaps the most enduringly successful of the many operatic settings of the world’s consummate love story, Roméo et Juliette is an excellent example of French Romanticism, a tradition that values subtlety, sensuality, and graceful vocal delivery over showy effects. In the opera there is a slight shift of focus away from the word games of the original play and a greater focus on the two lovers, who are given four irresistible duets, including a brief final reunion in the tomb scene that does not appear in the play.

In Shakespeare’s lifetime, Italy was a land of many small city-states in constant warfare with one another, but this same country was also the cradle of the Renaissance, with its astounding explosion of art and science. The image invoked by the story’s setting in the ancient city of Verona, then, is a beautiful but dangerous world where poetry or violence might erupt at any moment. The Met’s new production moves the action to the 18th century.

Live Metropolitan Opera Saturday radio broadcasts

S

aturdays Dec. 2, 2017-May 5, 2018 on The Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network.

The Metropolitan Opera  broadcast season is sponsored by Toll Brothers, America's luxury home builder, with generous long-term support from the Annenberg Foundation and the Vincent A. Stabile Endowment for Broadcast Media.

Contents of the broadcast are copyrighted by The Metropolitan Opera, all rights are reserved, and any use or reproduction of any of the material therein without permission of The Metropolitan Opera is strictly prohibited and will be prosecuted.

www.metopera.org
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