Roméo et Juliette
Synopsis and musical highlights with Valentina Peleggi
Read the full synopsis of Charles Gounod's Roméo et Juliette and listen to some of the work’s musical highlights, selected and illuminated by conductor Valentina Peleggi.
PROLOGUE
Verona was once torn apart by a blood feud between the Capulet and Montaigu families. Two young people from these clans – Roméo and Juliette – fell in love and paid for it with their lives.
OVERTURE
Valentina Peleggi: The entire opera is based on contrasts: love and death, private and public, dark and light. The overture itself establishes thar dualism by presenting two contrasting sections: the first part is fire and urgency. Aggressive brass accents, sudden sforzandi, and frantic, sweeping string passages create a claustrophobic sonic landscape. We already experience the turmoil, the human conflicts of emotions. But the second part is starkly different. It takes us to a time and space that do not exist. It’s a chorus. A solemn, chant-like unison reminiscent of a Greek tragedy. And then, the love theme emerges—first in the cellos and then by the full strings.
FIRST ACT
A masked ball is in full swing at the Capulets’ house. Tybalt, Juliette’s cousin, assures Count Pâris that he will take a great liking to his fiancée, Juliette. She enters on the arm of her father, Count Capulet. He introduces his daughter to his guests and invites everyone to enjoy themselves. What he ignores is that a small group of Montaigus, among them Roméo and Mercutio, have infiltrated the palace, wearing masks. Roméo has an ominous premonition about the party, but Mercutio dismisses his fears mockingly. As Roméo catches a glimpse of Juliette, he instantly falls in love.
‘Je veux vivre’
Valentina Peleggi: For the two lead singers, this score is very demanding. Not only in terms of length and endurance but also in terms of vocality. They need to find the right balance between power and intimacy, between projection and subtlety. Think about Juliette: her vocality evolves throughout the opera, from a youthful, coloratura-like ‘Je veux vivre’ in act1 where Juliette floats above the orchestra like a bird above water, to a much more dramatic writing for her ‘Poison aria’ in act 4.
Juliette is thoroughly enjoying the party and tells her nurse Gertrude – who is praising Pâris as a good match – that she has no intention of getting married. When Gertrude leaves her alone briefly, she meets Roméo. Both immediately sense that they are destined for one another. Their conversation is interrupted by Tybalt, who is looking for his cousin Juliette. He recognizes the voice behind the mask as that of Roméo, his sworn enemy. Roméo and Juliette realize that they belong to rival families. Tybalt is eager to confront Roméo and his friends, but Count Capulet holds him back: he doesn’t want his party to be spoilt. The Montaigus withdraw hurriedly.
SECOND ACT
Later that night, Roméo slips unseen into the Capulets’ garden. His page, Stéphano, helps him make his way to the balcony of Juliette’s room. When she comes out, they declare their love for one another. But their moment together is interrupted: Grégorio and other servants are searching for a page of the Montaigus’, who they believe has entered the garden. Gertrude sends them away. When Roméo and Juliette are alone again, Juliette assures him that she wants to marry him, and he reaffirms his love for her. When Gertrude calls Juliette back inside, the young lovers try to prolong their time together for as long as possible.
‘Ô nuit divine !’ & ‘Va ! Repose en paix !’
Valentina Peleggi: What is so unique and beautiful in Gounod’s version of Romeo and Juliet is that where other composers like Bellini and Vaccai (and their librettist Felice Romani), focused more on the political aspect of the play, Gounod’s attention is almost completely on the two young lovers, two young souls surrounded by a darkness. So, it is no surprise that, even from a formal point of view, the entire opera is shaped around four elegant, structurally distinct love duets between Roméo and Juliette. Each one has a particular flavour. How they work musically reflects how the characters themselves and their relationship change over the course of the opera. When they meet for the first time, the music is really ‘well behaved’, almost aristocratic. He sings a phrase, and she replies with the same phrase. There is (still) a respectful distance. But by the balcony scene in the second act, these barriers are already disappearing. Gounod adds recitatives, the rhythm is freer, they finish each other’s musical phrases and ride a continuous wave of orchestral color. It’s just fabulous.
THIRD ACT
First scene
Roméo visits Frère Laurent and confesses that he loves Juliette Capulet. Soon after, Juliette and Gertrude arrive. The two young people ask the friar to marry them. He agrees and blesses the young couple, in the hope that this love may reconcile the two rival families.
What about the orchestra?
Valentina Peleggi: Every opera has its own balance when the orchestra is concerned. Is it supporting or driving the plot and the emotions? Very often it is both. Here, it presents or launches the action, then sustains it, with a beautiful transparency. It has a weight and a darkness more aligned with the late 1800’s but at the same time, this dark cloud must embrace the characters, must surround them, but not to drive them or overpower them. Sometimes, the orchestra suggests ideas, anticipates certain themes, giving voice to things that are not yet expressed by the characters. What you can notice also is how Gounod uses the orchestral music to create a sense of entrapment. He will write a series of diminished chords in succession, and make the triads go slower, which gives you the feeling of a prison cell becoming smaller and smaller.
Second scene
The young Stéphano is at the Capulets’ house, looking for his master, Roméo. The young man mockingly sings about a turtle dove in a nest of vultures who is about to fly the nest for the sake of love. The references to Juliette’s situation act like a red rag to a bull on the Capulets, who rush up to him. In his overconfidence, Stéphano is eager to draw his sword and skirmish with the Capulets. Meanwhile, other Montaigus have also arrived on the scene, including Mercutio and Benvolio. Outraged, Mercutio throws himself into the confrontation; after all, Stéphano is still just a child. Tybalt, too, rushes up with other Capulets and draws his sword. Roméo tries to calm everyone down, but Tybalt is full of hatred and calls Roméo a coward who refuses to fight. Unable to bear the insult, Mercutio crosses swords with Tybalt. When Mercutio is lethally wounded, Roméo loses all restraint and, in a rage, lunges at Tybalt, whom he kills. Shocked, the onlookers demand justice from the Duke, who has arrived at the scene of the tragedy. The Duke banishes Roméo from Verona: he must leave the city that very evening.
FOURTH ACT
First scene
‘Roméo ! Qu'as-tu donc ?’
Valentina Peleggi: For me, this is one of the most beautiful opera duets ever written. Every single detail in the score is exquisite. This is French Romanticism at its pinnacle, a style defined by an elegant equilibrium of vocal lyricism, melodic flair, luminous orchestration, and an almost sacred intimacy. Roméo and Juliette sing the same text, at the same rhythm, above a whispering figuration in orchestra, before being disrupted by the offstage morning lark, forcing the music to rapidly oscillate between tender romance and desperation for departing.
Before leaving, Roméo has secretly spent the night with Juliette, who forgives her lover for killing Tybalt. As day breaks and the time to part draws near, they declare their love for one another once more. After Roméo has left, Count Capulet, accompanied by Frère Laurent, comes to tell his daughter that she is to marry Pâris that same day, in accordance with Tybalt’s wishes. As soon as her father has left, Juliette turns to Frère Laurent in despair: she would rather die than marry Pâris. He gives her a poison as a ruse to fake her death. If she takes the poison, she will appear dead, but this will only be a temporary state. In this way, the friar can ensure that she will wake up the following day in the family crypt with Roméo by her side, so that they can flee together. Despite a fearful foreboding, Juliette finds the courage in her love for Roméo to drink the poison.
Second scene
After taking the poison, Juliette experiences the events as if through a strange haze. On the threshold of the chapel where her wedding to Pâris is to take place, Capulet reminds his daughter of the marital bliss that awaits her. Suddenly, she collapses lifelessly. Capulet is horrified when he realizes that his daughter is no longer breathing.
Epithalamium
Valentina Peleggi: Gounod makes a particular effort to isolate Roméo and Juliette from the rest of the world. Not only by alternating the big ensembles with the intimate duets, but also by implementing a distance between the lovers and other people on stage within some of the choral scenes themselves. In this version, we use a scene that is often cut called the ‘Epithalamium’, a traditional wedding song (from the 1888 version of the score). It almost feels dystopian in a way. The chorus breaks into a festive madrigal written with a pastoral and dance-like lightness. The radiant joy of this music directly weaponizes the horror of the situation as Juliet collapsing under the terrifying influence of the drug while the chorus blissfully sings of life, youth, and marriage. It creates a striking theatrical contrast that I find deeply moving.
FIFTH ACT
Because he did not receive Frère Laurent’s message explaining the ruse, Roméo believes that Juliette is truly dead. He enters the Capulet crypt. Upon seeing his lifeless beloved, he drinks a poison himself. At that moment, Juliette awakens. For a moment, the lovers are overjoyed and prepare to flee together, but then Roméo feels the poison taking effect. When Juliette realizes that he is doomed, she takes the dagger she had concealed and stabs herself. The two lovers die together.
‘Console-toi, pauvre âme’
Valentina Peleggi: How you end an opera can make a lasting impression on the audience if you do it right. Gounod and his librettists opted for a last, emotionally charged final duet. The momentary joy of the lover’s reunion is cut short by Roméo's dramatic confession that he has drunk the poison. Then sounds alluding to the call of the lark from their previous duet can be heard in the orchestra, in the violas, now resembling a majestic prayer for forgiveness. One of the musical tricks used by Gounod at the very end shows his understanding of the main characters. Roméo and Juliette are never able to free themselves from the bloody feud between their families. So, in the music, there is this constant tension that is never fully resolved. But in the last few bars, one of the main themes that we have heard throughout the opera can finally resolve and in doing so, the tension breaks. Because it’s a tragedy, this release is both freeing and devastating.
