Opera de Paris: ROMEO AND JULIET

Synopsis

Opera in five acts (1867)
New Production! How many composers have been inspired by Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers? From Vincenzo Bellini and Hector Berlioz via Leonard Bernstein, the list is long. If Charles Gounod’s exquisite opera, first performed during the Universal Exhibition of 1867, enjoyed immediate popularity, it's undoubtedly because it translated the tumultuous lives of the celebrated lovers (here the exceptional Elsa Dreisig and Benjamin Bernheim) with the greatest finesse. Four love duets, a fiery waltz, luminous and lyrical music: the entire score trembles with desire and freshness. This new staging by Thomas Jolly, one of the most inventive directors of his generation, reputed for his audacious re-readings of Shakespeare, celebrates this hymn to youth. Carlo Rizzi conducts.