Roméo et Juliette – Charles Gounod

Romeo and Juliet is a romantic French opera full of powerful emotions and music awash with love.

While Faust may be Gounod’s best-known work, Romeo and Juliet is his most cherished. It’s easy to see why. The music moves towards its climax duet by duet, developing the young lovers’ relationship towards its inevitable conclusion.

The young award-winning director Amy Lane is the Artistic Director of the Copenhagen Opera Festival. She sets the events of Shakespeare’s original tale in the hopeful late 19th century New York. The city has welcomed a massive wave of immigrants from Italy, including the Capulets, and the new arrivals, the Montagues, who arrived just 16 years ago.

The Capulets, known for their brilliant parties, organise a circus-themed New Year’s masquerade, and slipping in to the party is a disguised Romeo Montague. For Juliet Capulet, who turns 16 on that night, the world will change. The sense of danger weaves an intriguing tension accompanied by Gounod’s overflowing musical score.

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