The Metropolitan Opera revived Bartlett Sher’s production of “Roméo et Juliette” for the first time since 2018. As always, Gounod’s famed masterpiece is all about its two titular characters, the opera designed to explore the dynamics of the lovers amidst the larger feud between their warring families.

Painting with Vocal Colors

The Met Opera nailed its casting of Benjamin Bernheim as Roméo, a tenor who might be unmatched at this moment in the French repertoire. Few singers can come into the Met and sing with the same level of clarity at their softest, every word intact and precise. But what’s more, Bernheim’s voice is rich with colors, allowing him to paint his Romeo’s numerous shades as explored by Gounod. He seemed to ride the wave of the music freely throughout, often soaring gloriously with seeming effortlessness.

In his initial appearance as Roméo, there was a restraint in his initial rejection of Mercutio’s risk taking and his Queen Mab aria, expressing Roméo’s reluctance. But his voice brightened up upon seeing Juliette on “Cette beauté céleste,” Bernheim, who’s initial body language was withdrawn and firmly rooted to one side of the stage, suddenly sprung into action as if a moth drawn to light. His tenor blossomed over “O treasure worthy of the heavens!” rising to an glowing A5 at the apex of the phrase.

Equally smooth was his phrasing throughout “Ange adorable,” the tenor imbuing Gounod’s line with elegant legato, particularly in the final rallentando on “l’indigne trace de ma main par un baiser!” Throughout the duet Bernheim’s Roméo retained this silkiness in his singing, expressing both tenderness and gentle cautiousness; Roméo is in ecstasy at meeting Juliette and yet it’s easy to forget that he’s coming off a heartbreak when the opera opens.

The musical touchstone of the entire evening was undeniably “Ah! Lève-toi soleil!” where Bernheim’s voice flowed with the line. The first verse was delivered tenderly, the voice rarely rising above a mezzo-piano. Only when he reached the apex of the phrase, on the Bb5 on “Parais,” did it ring into the hall with greater heft. In the second verse, his voice took on greater  strength, the “Amour! Amour!” section building and giving way to a more resolute repeat of “Ah! lève-toi soleil!” By the time we arrived at the climactic “pareil” before the coda, his voice was more vigorous in its delivery, the musical development giving this section greater sense of payoff. His final “Pareil” was delivered with similar aplomb, the tenor extending the note for a thrilling lengthy interval. Bernheim’s movements in this aria were limited, but his gaze, always fixed on a seeming horizon before him, coupled with the musical development of the aria, allowed the audience to feel Roméo’s emotional growth and longing throughout this moment.

While the tenor retained his gentle vocal colors throughout his duets with Juliette, there was noticeable contrast during the big crowd scene at the close of Act three. After Mercutio’s death, Bernheim’s Roméo, jumped up, challenging Tybalt with a forceful, pointed approach and charged at him. Where Frederick Ballentine’s Tybalt was graceful and composed in his dueling style (more later), Bernheim’s movements suggested a bull seeing red, aptly expressing that this was not a situation that his Roméo often found himself in. And once the murder was complete, he froze, the relaxed and calm body language that was settling into his performance as his love with Juliette grew, suddenly shut down. As Benvolio implored that he run away, Bernheim’s Roméo just stood there, frozen. He approached Capulet as if looking to help in some way, the resulting rejection leading him zombie-like across the stage yet again, searching for anyone. You could feel the disintegration of his innocence in real-time. Bernheim’s singing “Ah! jour de deuil et d’horreur” was full of longing, the tenor’s voice at its most formidable, climaxing on a brilliant high C.

Bernheim did some of his finest work in Act five. When he lifted the veil and realized Juliette was lying before him, his Roméo stepped back slowly, taking a moment to process what was happening, his singing soft at first and then building up into its passionate on the evening. Throughout this death scene, Bernheim’s voice stretched to greater and greater heights, expressing the conflicted desperation of leaving his Juliette behind. While the tenor noticeably flubbed a high note at one point and did seem to be waning a bit by the end in some of the most difficult passages, there was a magnetism in how his gaze constantly searched for Juliette, reached for her, his voice eventually returning to the tender elegance that had so marked many of their musical moments together. It felt like through his performance, his Roméo had come full circle in his final moments.

Larger than Life!

In the role of Juliette, Nadine Sierra played up the camp in the opera, her interpretation of the character’s angst and boundless energy packaged in a high-octane physical portrayal. In her physicality, she often seemed to invoke the gestures and movements of divas from opera’s golden age, no movement too big, no gesture too grand!

She rushed onstage in her opening moments, prancing around, twirling, a massive grin spread across her face as she laughed with the other party guests. When she saw Paris, this instantly shifted to rushing away from him, Sierra’s child-like facial articulations constantly indicating her disgust for her suitor. The intensity of those opening moments seemed to overwhelm the soprano’s opening “Écoutez, écoutez,” the high notes a bit unsteady and tending toward sharpness in the early going.

But after she settled in for “Je veux vivre,” Sierra was fully in control of her vocal resources and ready to push them to their limits at every single turn. This was noticeable from the start where Sierra’s opening “Ah!” of the aria set us up immediately for the fortissimo with which she would imbue so much of her performance, a driver stepping on the gas at full throttle and rarely letting go. She imbued that initial verse of the famed waltz with short, piano phrasing, all while flitting around the stage, her eyes darting all over the theater as if playing for her stage partners but also the audience. Later in the aria, her voice became more noticeably forceful in its approach of the nimble passages, allowing the soprano to build the roulades to a thunderous forte high note. Once the audience broke into applause, Sierra took it all in, nodding to her adoring fans, a massive smile across her face!

She upped the ante of playfulness and overzealousness during her initial interactions with Roméo, particularly during “Ange adorable” where she circled him during her “Calmez vos craintes.” During the balcony scene, as she rushed out to jump into her Roméo’s arms, she seemed to bump into him and gave an audible indication that something unexpected had occurred. Sierra was pronounced in her affection for Berheim’s Roméo from this moment on, constantly flirting with him and looking to kiss him. During the marriage scene, one could see the two lovers constantly engaged in quiet conversation as Friar Laurent read their vows. It lended an air of innocence to the proceedings, emphasizing that they weren’t taking in the seriousness of their commitment. Musically, in the first duet, the two singers’ voices took time to blend and weren’t quite on the same page in terms of intensity and volume, but, like the lovers throughout the opera, by the time they got to the Act four duet, they found a happy medium.

In the famed Act four duet, Sierra grasped Bernheim as if holding on for dear life, even shaking her head as he sang “Non, ce n’est pas le jour,” indicating Juliette’s fear of losing him. It was here that her singing best matched his vocal coloring, her voice gentle and bright, the lines connected to one another and flowing gracefully. “Adieu, mon âme! adieu, ma vie,” her softest singing of the night, was also her most affecting, the soprano’s delicate timbre able to imbue Gounod’s line with longing.

During the scene with Frère Laurent, Sierra’s intensity ramped up further as the soprano rushed to a nearby boudoir, seized every paper and item she could find and uncontrollably hurled them around the space in a frenzied fit of rage. As Lawrence lectured her on what had to happen next, Sierra rushed around the stage, whipping her dress around as if looking for a way out, her wide eyes frenetic in their search. Sierra’s movement was so frantic in its intensity that you could be forgiven for not even noticing that Alfred Walker (interpreting Laurent) was onstage with her.

Sierra’s high-powered act found its match in the famed “Potion aria” where Juliette makes the fateful decision to drink an elixir that will put her in a temporary coma-death. Sierra’s voice was at its most thunderous throughout the aria, holding out the climactic high note in the first half of the aria with fortissimo intensity and unbounded length in a feat of potent stamina. She seized the knife and with her hands outstretched over her head as high as she could hold them, prepared to strike herself. But then, Juliette doubts and Sierra hurled the knife to the ground, and in similar fashion to how she’d interacted throughout the Frère Laurent scene, she paraded around the stage, her gaze on a swivel, the soprano’s physical approach growing more unhinged as she sang of seeing Thibaut’s ghost. At this particular moment, the soprano outstretched her arms in front of her face as if to protect herself from the specter, her pose shifting constantly about. Then when Juliette regained strength, Sierra, quickly rushed to the front of the stage and powered through the rest of the aria, her voice growing in intensity and the climactic high note sung with similar potency and length to its twin in the first half. At the apex of the aria, with the orchestra roaring, Sierra whipped her arms up twice in synchrony with the two orchestral chords, and pounded her chest as she sang “Roméo je bois à toi” before quickly thrusting the bottle into mouth, downing the potion, and then violently hurling the bottle aside with the same exact movement and intensity that she used to chuck the knife aside just moments earlier!

In the final act, the intensity revved up further moments after she awakened from her slumber. When Bernheim’s Roméo told her he had drank the potion, she rushed to the edge of the stage, seized the bottle and immediately exploded into audible sobbing onstage, catching her breath for a few of them, her hands smeared across her face as she writhed back and forth in pain! Then, as Bernheim continued his gentle “Console-toi, pauvre âme,” Sierra leapt to her feet up, rushed to the back of the stage as if searching for help with a wildness that was Lucia-madscene-like in its intensity. All the way upstage, her back to the dying Roméo, she tried to drink from the bottle, once, twice, and upon realizing that it had nothing, she hurled it to the ground as she had done with the knives during previous scenes. Eventually, she rushed to her dying Roméo’s side and even while holding him, her wide-eyed visage darted all over the place as if searching for someone. Anyone! Eventually, she settled on him as he gasped away and in a massive diva-like swoop, Sierra clutched the knife and “plunged it into herself,” her body shaking violently as she played up Juliette’s final breaths, the soprano spreading her arms wide in her final posture! It’ll be interesting to see how Sierra’s larger-than-life approach plays for the cameras in HD where less is often more.

Strong Complements

The casting of Will Liverman as Mercutio provided a vibrant contrast to Bernheim’s Roméo. Where Bernheim’s tenor was gentle in the initial going, Liverman’s Mercutio was aggressive and pointed in his famed Mab aria, the darkness in his voice magnetic. This counterpoint grew throughout the night, climaxing in the big duel scene where his Mercutio’s rugged aggression played in perfect contrast to the balletic movements of Frederick Ballentine’s Thibaut. The fact that he sustained his vocal gruffness in his final moments when he curses the two houses, provided a perfect launchpad for Bernheim to follow with his more pointed singing of the night.

Ballentine’s night got off to a rough start with the tenor struggling with his high notes early, but he settled in by Act three and was particularly impactful with the directness of his singing and biting clarity of his French. Combined with his ease of movement and skill throughout the duel, his presence in this scene was easily the most visually and dramatically dynamic of the entire evening.

Alfred Walker’s bass imbued Frère Laurent with earthiness. He sang with a grace and calm that made his interpretation of Laurent feel like the moral compass of the piece. Even as Roméo and Juliette ignored him during the marriage or as Juliette romped around the stage as he instructed her of her next steps in Act four, his presence remained commanding and consistent.

Samantha Hankey played up Stéphano’s joviality in her big aria at the start of the second half, prancing around as she toyed with the rest of the villagers onstage, almost as if her Stéphano owned the place. Her articulate singing matched this energy and she whipped off the closing coloratura passage of the aria with poised bravura. The beauty of Hankey’s approach was that this is our introduction of Stéphano. Moments later, this cockiness is completely subverted as the Capulets bully him around the stage without even trying, adding a layer of irony to the proceedings and ramping up the tension for what was to come.

Eve Gigliotti struck a comic presence as Gertrude, her overzealousness playing perfectly into her character’s overprotectiveness of Juliette. One particular touchstone moment is when she chides Grégorio, knocking him on the head.

As Capulet Nathan Berg struggled throughout his big number  “Allons! jeunes gens,” the high notes unsupported and simply not registering. Nonetheless, his characterization of the patriarch tended toward more playful and relaxed in the early going. We even get a sense that he doesn’t see the feud the same way as the younger Thibaut does. But as he holds the dead Thibaut in his arms, we could see the shift. Even then, his rejection of Roméo didn’t suggest outward disgust but confused anger. By the time we get to his scene with Juliette, there was a more stoic approach, giving the character a dynamic arc and making those initial vocal faults feel insignificant.

Jeongchal Cha and Daniel Rich both struck stoic figures as Grégorio and Paris, respectively. Cha playful flirtation with Gertrude contrasted perfectly with the more sinister toying with Stéphano a few acts later.

Richard Bernstein sang with a subdued bass that gave his Duke of Verona both authority but also poise. Thomas Capobiano displayed an earthy tenor as Benvolio while urging Roméo to run away. 

Disjointed

Speaking of the staging, Gina Lapinski was given the challenge of bringing life into Bartlett Sher’s sober, period production. This is precisely that kind of production that demands a lot from its performers, but also requires a revival director that can manage some degree of balance. Unfortunately, there were abrupt tonal shifts throughout, with the Montagues constantly called upon to run around the stage. It felt called for during the duel, but by then, we had already experienced about three other episodes of Montagues dashing across the stage that it had a major diminishing returns effect.

Most of the time people were standing around in static frames and any kind of movement from most of the cast felt like people lost in space, searching for somewhere to go.

Equally confusing was the music-making in the pit.

The opening of the opera features a cataclysmic overture-prologue, an Allegro maestoso that explodes with violent entrances from the percussion. Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin went for broke with these accented openings, the percussion so loud that it could split anyone’s eardrums. It was almost an uncomfortable assault on the hearing that, in addition to being overly aggressive, overpowered the anxious runs in the violin section, creating a mushy ocean of sound that didn’t coalesce for a while. Things markedly improved during the ensuing fugue and for the most part, the conductor managed to keep the Met Orchestra in strong shape. That said, his tempi were odd. The more romantic and sensual moments, most notably the introduction of the love duet in Act four, zipped by, undercutting the longing and lingering of the lovers. Alternatively, Frère Laurent’s monologue in Act four dragged, Nézet-Séguin’s tempo slow. The pacing of the night on the whole waxed and waned, which is strange for an opera with as much forward-momentum as Gounod’s masterpiece.

The Met Opera’s “Roméo et Juliette” runs through March 30, 2024.