Roméo et Juliette set Berlioz’s creative fuse fizzing
Does Berlioz’s Roméo and Juliette pack the drama-punch of other fully staged operas based on the story? The answer is a resounding “yes”.
“It’s an opera Jim, but not as we know it.” Trekkies, fans of the trans galactic adventures of James T Kirk, captain of the star ship USS Enterprise will recognise the cautionary voice of “Bones”, Dr Leonard McCoy, who could spot an alien composer at 100 parsecs.
Roméo et Juliette, Hector Berlioz’ dramatic symphony of 1839, is an “opera” like no other. The topsy turvy composer who had taken Paris by storm with his demonic, narrative Symphonie Fantastique in 1830 was at it again. This time, the famous Shakespeare play – Berlioz had been bowled over by a David Garrick Paris performance - set the composer’s creative fuse fizzing.
He had also fallen head over heels with the Irish actress, Harriet Smithson, who played Juliet, became his muse for Symphonie Fantastique, and later his wife in a marriage “pas fantastique”. But that’s a story in itself, for another day.
As Berlioz did not understand English – the play was not translated into French – perhaps it is unsurprising that he would let his music carry the burden of the narrative, sandwiching the main action between a prequel – which tells the whole tragedy about to unfold - and a coda delivered by chorus, mezzo soprano, tenor and bass baritone, resolving the conflict hidden in the mists of time between the Veronese Montague and Capulet families.
Berlioz and his librettist, Émile Deschamps’s approach to their subject was not totally unfamiliar. Except for introducing an optimistic, if not happy, ending. After all, Handel had oscillated between oratorio and fully staged opera form. And hadn’t Beethoven in 1824 broken all the rules with his ninth symphony, a blend of conventional instruments, chorus and four solo voices?
Rather than wriggle on the hook of “form,” pose the question, does Berlioz’ Roméo and Juliette, pack the drama-punch of other fully staged operas based on the story - Bellini’s I Capuleti et Montecchi, staged at La Fenice, Venice in 1830, or the later Charles Gounod version which enraptured Paris in 1867?
Beyond a doubt, unequivocally, tear-jerking movingly, hair-on-neck-bristlingly, the answer is a resounding “yes”. The thrust of narrative style Berlioz found in his Symphonie Fantastique with its story of an artist’s (Berlioz) obsession with a woman (Harriet) and drug-fuelled descent into madness, witches sabbath, march to the scaffold and all, had provided a template.
Roméo at Juliette – the Berlioz version - is something of a rare performance bird. Medici TV currently offers a fine Barbican version with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Valery Gergiev, Olga Borodino, mezzo soprano, Kenneth Tarver, tenor, Yevgeny Nikitin, bass baritone the London Symphony Chorus and the chorus of the nearby Guildhall School of Music.
From the moment Gergiev raises his toothpick, the wordless music places us in the midst of a babbling, skirmishing crowd of Montagues and Capulets which only a brass blast representing the outraged Prince, the ultimate Veronese authority to which even ancient families had to doff their headgear, can quell.
“What’s the scuttlebutt on the toothpick thingy? Surely you mean baton”, I hear the musically alert and dumb among you ask alike. “He’s really lost it this time!”
Gergiev is currently famous for cosying up too closely to Vlad the Ukrainian Impaler. Rightly, he has been shunned for that. I would prefer he was known for choosing to conduct with a toothpick.
Why? I have heard academic cognoscenti opine that he can deliver more precision with a molar scraper than a conventional baton. Point of focus for members of the orchestra. “Pay attention to the toothpick at the back!” B…cks!
The truth is more prosaic. Over demonstrative Gergiev used to lose himself so much in the music that a conventional, weighty baton would frequently slip from a sweaty upraised hand carving chaos indiscriminately amidst the second violins, or, worse, the audience.
The musicians’ union stepped in. Now, their members can expect at most an irritating poke in the eye.
Berlioz had his own pragmatic reason for stepping back from the full operatic form and picking up a simpler instrument, the dramatic symphony. His first attempts at opera, Les Francs-juges (1826), and Benvenuto Cellini (1837) had tanked.
Berlioz could not afford to risk another failure. His strained finances could not take it. La Damnation de Faust, a légende dramatique, followed in 1846 and only with Les Troyens (1858) and the comedic Béatrice et Bénédict (1862) would Berlioz dare venture back into the uncompromising world of full-on opera.
Typically, when he did, he went Berlioz full on. Les Troyens is a five-hour epic demanding hugely complex staging – royal hunts, storms, waterfalls – water was diverted from the Seine to flow through the Théâtre Lyrique – and massive voices. Producers demanded cuts in the extravagant action and got them.
Berlioz was dismayed by the compromises. When congratulated by a friend on the growing audiences, “See, they are coming!” he sardonically responded, “They are coming. But I am going.”
Roméo et Juliette. After the tumult in the Prologue, the love story is sung by a combination of Little Chorus, Main Chorus, tenor and mezzo. When Roméo returns after falling in love with Juliette, he is teased by Mercutio, his friend.
“My dear”, said the elegant Mercutio,” I bet May Queen Mab has visited you”. Cue for a scherzo, and a tenor and chorus ensemble conducted with lightning pace. It was Mab, a tiny fairy who makes dreams come true who had created, “Crazy gallops in the brain of a page.”
Here Berlioz adopts a galloping tempo, out of character with the rest of the piece. Not a new technique to catch an audience’s attention. Mozart used it in Leporello’s “list” aria in don Giovanni.
And it is reprised in Igor Stravinsky’s The Rakes Progress, when Babar the Turk, that unlikely bearded lady bride, bombards the hapless Tom Rakewell with a blizzard of demands.
The introduction ends with the Choir:
“Soon death is sovereign,
Capulets, Montagues, tamed by pains,
Finally move closer to abjure hatred,
That caused so much blood and weeping.”
Then, the actual run of plot is delivered in a series of musical tableaux – Romeo alone, Tristesse, Concert and Ball, Great Party at the Capulets; moving on the Love Scene.
For the Funeral Convoy of Juliet back comes the Chorus and Friar Laurence makes his grand appearance. Recall, he is the priest who married Roméo and Juliette, gave Juliette the sleeping draught then - oops! - got stuck in the pub en route to warn Romeo. With fatal consequences.
Friar Laurence in the Berlioz version speaks with the voice of God, telling the warring families that he married the kids because,
“I saw there the salutary pledge,
For a future friendship between your two houses.”
The Montagues and the Capulets are having none of it and the chorus voices a list of outrages perpetrated by each house upon the other dating back to the year dot.
But they are eventually persuaded by Friar Laurence’s rebuke, to swear “On the body of the girl and the body of the son” to give up the battle and seal a bond of friendship.
How long the Laurence ceasefire will hold may well be a matter for another opera. For the purposes of Berlioz, the deal is sealed by the line “We swear to finally extinguish all our resentments, friends for ever.” And with not a single rare earths mining concession in sight.
Berlioz addresses a continuing human tragedy that may sometimes pause but is never truly resolved. The point of his Roméo et Juliette is that the story is told in music that is beyond words. That’s what reaches into the heart and brain of the audience, making a lasting impact.
Today, societies are still fractioning and factionalising between extremes. Old orders are dissolved with scant regard for coherent replacement. Those elected to high office brush aside constitutional constraints like annoying blow flies.
In the USA, executive orders rather than legislation approved by both houses of Congress - the safety catch of the American Constitution - shape policy in a cascade of chaos. Berlioz’ Chorus would have its work cut out attempting to keep up.
In the first 100 days of the 47th President, 5 bills have been signed, but 142 executive orders issued. Listen to Berlioz’ Roméo et Juliette. And anyone know which tavern Friar Laurence drinks in?
And another, Scottish, thing!
Scottish Opera has just announced its 2025/26 season featuring five mainstage productions. A double bill of L’heure espagnole - Ravel; and William Walton’s The Bear; La bohème – Puccini in autumn 2025.
Followed by a world premiere of The Great Wave – new work from Dai Fujikura and Harry Ross; Tristan und Isolde – Wagner – and The Marriage of Figaro – Mozart in spring 2026.
Director Alex Reedjik is to be congratulated for boldness in these cash-strapped times. Two out of the five productions are potentially high risk – the Ravel/Walton double bill and The Great Wave.
The latter, for clarity, is an extravagant story about Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai and his famous woodblock print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa. It is not a prequel to a joint celebration ‘Old Firm’ rolling wave of Celtic and Rangers fans at the opening of their potential, but controversial joint stadium.
That WOULD be opera of a higher order. Braver than forecasting a reconciliation of the Montagues and Capulets.
I hope Reedjik and his team have an eye on a New York Met co-production with The Great Wave. Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, last season’s co-production, was a huge success and a Scottish Opera coup.
“To boldly go”. Great stuff.