Yannick Nézet-Séguin asks the Mozarteum Orchester
Salzburg to rise as the cast of Roméo et Juliette looks on at the
Felsenreitschule. Photo by Leonard Turnevicius.
(Salzburg, Austria – August 2, 2008) The Salzburg Festival rolled out the red carpet earlier this evening for the première of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.
In the pit, it was Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin making his festival début leading the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg at the Felsenreitschule.
Like Muti yesterday evening with the Vienna PO, Nézet-Séguin, too, was a master in the pit, controlling the ebb and flow of Gounod’s score, which was given with the customary cuts. In short, he had the orchestra eating out of his hand.
One marked difference between Nézet-Séguin and Muti, is that the former found that fine line between being the leader, but also being accompanist. In short, Nézet-Séguin allowed the singers on stage the freedom to be artists, to bring their characters to life. Yes, they followed Nézet-Séguin, but unlike the vocalists in Otello, tonight’s cast drew you into their drama.
The cast was headed by Rolando Villazón as Roméo. He gave a very fine performance--ardent, passionate, and dramatic to the hilt. Vocally, there were some very fine moments such as in Ah, lève-toi soleil! However, there were more than a few occasions where Villazón was unstable pitch-wise on entrances, often approaching the first note from below. He offered no interpolated high Cs on this night.
His Juliette was to have been Russian soprano Anna Netrebko. She however, cancelled months ago due to pregnancy.
Taking her spot was the twenty-five year old Georgian soprano Nino Machaidze. She did her best to make people forget about La Netrebko. And she almost succeeded were it not for some thinness in the extreme upper range as heard in the Act I arietta Je veux vivre, and some dubiously executed trills. Dramatically, she took her Juliette from teenage coquette to a mature woman in crisis.
There was another Canadian in this show, baritone Russell Braun who sang the role of Mercutio. His Mab, la reine des mensonges was well executed, but he received scant applause from the crowd. Dramatically, Braun took a supporting character with little depth, and brought out a multi-sided person--jovial, then hot-headed.
In the pant role of Stéphano, Cora Burggraaf entered from the rear of the Felsenreitschule, made her way part way through the audience and sang the opening of her chanson Depuis hier je cherche standing on top of a wooden rail dividing a section of seats in the auditorium.
Excellently matched were the strong, stentorian voices of Mikhail Petrenko as Frère Laurent, Falk Struckmann as Le Comte Capulet, and Christian van Horn as Le Duc de Vérone.
Jean-Luc Ballestra’s Grégorio was a delight to listen to.
Juan Francisco Gatell was a thinner voiced Tybalt.
Susanne Resmark’s Gértrude was suitably matronly, and she received some chuckles from the audience after lifting and carrying Grégorio several metres across the stage.
The Vienna State Opera Chorus was beyond reproach.
Bartlett Sher’s direction was highly cogent, clear, and effective. Set designer Michael Yeargan did the best he could in the Felsenreitschule. As the name implies, this was the Rock Riding School in days of old, hewn out from the Mönchsberg. It is actually an open air amphitheatre which the festival covers with an expensive roof for the summer. There is no stage curtain. So, audiences can see the performers walk on and off stage prior to or at the end of an act. This proved most unsettling in the final scene where Juliette was seen walking, then laying herself onto her catafalque and crossing her arms on her chest. (She was supposed to be dead to the people around her, though actually in some kind of unconscious state due to Frère Laurent’s potion.)
There was no balcony scene, even though the Felsenreitschule’s entire backdrop is made up of three storeys of porticos running the width of the stage. Instead, the centre of Yeargan’s set, a rather large and wide dais, slanted upwards to create a ramp upon which Juliette walked.
Catherine Zuber’s costumes placed the action closer to the Baroque rather than the Renaissance.
Jennifer Tipton’s lighting was effective.
B. H. Barry’s sword fighting scenes were exciting though there were moments where Mercutio (who ends up getting killed) and Roméo could have finished off their rivals earlier.
There were eight minutes of applause, with many in the audience standing (a rarity in Salzburg, unless of course, they were in a hurry to leave at 11:09 p.m.). The cameras of the ORF were there to telecast the opera live.
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