Review: Roméo et Juliette

"Roméo et Juliette, New Jersey Opera"

Opera News (David Shengold)

New Jersey Opera (having lopped "Theater" off its name) offered a three-work summer season comprising Die Zauberflöte, The Pirates of Penzance and Roméo et Juliette. Gounod's lovely work — deservedly popular again — is by far the hardest of the three for a small young company to present, but July 22's matinée proved enjoyable and ultimately moving. Much in Marc Verzatt's gracefully blocked
production was admirable: swift flow (the work was trimmed, most notably of the scene of Juliette's sham death at her nuptials with Paris); spare but telling detail in props....

Music director Steven Mosteller's orchestra was probably at minimum numbers to put this score over, even in a theater as intimate as the Berlind; that they managed it is a tribute to his powers of balance; often, in smaller venues, a visiting critic dreads string-tone problems; but NJO consistently provides fine,
well-rehearsed players. Gounod's opera lives and dies with its two leads. Here, guest artists on the rise Scott Ramsay and Manon Strauss Evrard proved a very appealing pair. Ramsay's growing tenor remains light for Roméo (a big sing), but he is a thoughtful, musical artist and shaped text and music with care and stylish expressiveness.

Nothing was shirked, certainly not the high C capping Act III; as the afternoon wore on, he integrated his
head tones more fully with the rest of his voice. Strauss Evrard brought to her slim, youthfully ardent Juliette the immeasurable advantage of native French; her words were beautifully phrased in a way one
seldom hears today except on Opéra Comique recordings that are decades old. ...what bracing stylistic authenticity and potential!

...Matthew Curran followed up last summer's successful Alfonso with another arranger of marriages, Frère Laurent. ...Curran handled it with pleasingly solid tone. Sara Fanuchi made a refreshingly uncaricatured Nurse, attractive in sound and person. ... Nina Yoshida Nelsen [as Stephano], Stephen Lavonier [as Mercutio], James Barbato [as Tybalt] and Bruce Negron's Grégorio deserve credit for making Jeff A. R. Jones's swordfights unusually convincing.

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