Roméo et Juliette

A Shakespearean fancy dress ball

In their opulent home, the Capulets are hosting a party in honour of their daughter Juliet. This is where Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette opens. Visually, a theme was needed: the idea of a Shakespearean ball came to Cécile Trémolières, as a nod not only to the famous drama about to be performed, but also to the Bard’s other works. ‘It is a way of appropriating a shared culture and popular images, including mistakes and discrepancies’, she smiles. ‘We can afford to be somewhat ironic, grandiloquent even in the world of opera, which is so already. We have to weigh up the risk and find a balance. In short, we have to avoid going overboard in terms of kitsch, while embracing the excess that opera can offer.’

From the outset, the silhouettes, textures, accessories and colours stand out against a backdrop of clean lines. Bruno Fatalot, head of La Monnaie’s costume workshop, was won over by the bold yet extremely delicate palette characterizing the ball, ‘centred around red, but ranging from powder pink to almost black’. The line between his team – busy making the costumes for the chorus of Roméo et Juliette, nearly 200 in total, as the glowing red palette of the beginning then shifts towards a neutral range – and the costume designer was clear enough to encompass artistic sensibilities and embrace their fluctuations. The dialogue between them developed smoothly, two curious minds that echoed each other and also shared certain elements of their backgrounds, from the childhood discovery of opera to solid professional experience in the English-speaking world.

Does the music score fuel the set and costume designer? ‘It’s a question of searching between the meaning of the words, the music and the unspoken’, says Cécile Trémolières. While Shakespeare’s drama inspired the opera as a whole, the text moves away from it. ‘Beyond the situation described, it was important for us to determine what we can and want to evoke in the subtext – what psychological profiles, what contexts – and how to flesh out what the libretto has sometimes simplified. It’s a constant challenge. Julia and I both like to tell rich stories, and that pushes us to extrapolate. Of course, the music underlines the emotional tones and the rhythm of the action. Expansive musical passages sometimes need to be left to exist on their own, while others require us to create images to inhabit them.’

The party, the crime, the world after

If, in this respect, each opera is unique, how is it possible to tell a story as proverbial as that of the lovers of Verona with the greatest possible acuity? ‘How can we bring relief to popular culture? How can we appropriate what everyone is familiar with?’, asks Cécile Trémolières. The initial ideas explored with Julia Burbach – unfolding the love story, staging the staging – gave way to a decision to ‘stay as close as possible to what it is: a flame that transforms everything in a very short time. An evening, a party, the night, the crime the next day – precipitating the story towards a kind of underworld where death and depression have taken over.’

In this parallel, almost inverted world, nothing real exists anymore. So the set designer and director focused on the inner narratives. ‘The only precise framework here is the notion of time’, continues Cécile Trémolières. And time is made palpable by the costumes which, as Bruno Fatalot indicates, will transform from the red of the beginning to white gradually stained with black. ‘The fancy dress party gradually dissolves. The silhouettes are dishevelled when the crime is committed. A visual trigger then marks the transition to another world.’

In contrast to the elaborate details of the costumes, the set design tends towards sobriety – a rare fact in view of the often rich and colourful worlds that Julia Burbach likes to imagine. ‘Gounod’s music is already a little “creamy”, so we didn’t want to add to that.’ Sophistication is not lacking for all that, however; it follows the curve of their joint research: from a pragmatic analysis of the story’s needs to a more instinctive approach, so that the aesthetics are drawn tighter using recurring images, as the set designer explains. ‘Here, the central murder changes everything. How could this be translated visually? Structures that are both threatening and light represent the world in which Juliet lives. This is the world of the Capulets, and Romeo’s arrival turns everything upside down. It is reminiscent of a bird in a cage, of chain mail – all in a very empty, very free space in which they are going to be able to dance’ – until the bloodshed that casts a shadow over everything.

Visual dramaturgy

At first an idea, then a project, the creation becomes a ‘physical and technical emergency’ when the countless questions arise in terms of production, materials and lighting. A time marked by doubts raised and decisions made, and always a confrontation between a certain dream and reality. But, Cécile Trémolières insists, ‘La Monnaie is a legendary place for this, capable of giving shape to the imagination.’

For Trémolières, ‘the sets and costumes are not just a backdrop but characters in their own right that must evolve and move with the story’. The performers – soloists, dancers, choristers – must also take ownership of them. This is what systematically captivates the designer, even though this stage marks the moment when she starts stepping back. ‘The voices, the people, the bodies take ownership of the project, which is no longer just ours.’

Up to that point, however, she will have listened closely and paid attention, with care. ‘The beauty of costume design is that you are close to people and their vulnerabilities, even when they are used to inhabiting an image that transcends them, are aware of being part of a whole. In some cases, it is also a question of helping them, of showing them off to their best advantage. I find their ability to be on stage fascinating, so I make sure they feel good, that the slope is passable and the outfit comfortable.’ Her two trades make Cécile Trémolières the visual dramaturge of this new Roméo et Juliette. ‘I mainly trained as a set designer; costume design is something I learn with people.’

Translation: Patrick Lennon