Composer: Vincenzo Bellini
Librettist: Felice Romani
Conductor: Alphonse Cemin
Director: Eloise Lally
Transferring the excesses of the Italian Renaissance into modern gangland has become a trope of opera productions ever since Jonathan Miller’s ground-breaking mafia Rigoletto all those years ago and one which Elaine Lally is unable to resist for English Touring Opera, but I Capuleti e I Montecchi is a very different work from Rigoletto. Regarded as a bel canto masterpiece, it firmly resists any attempt to turn it into verismo. Moments of violent action separate heroic or romantic scenes, but there is none of the cumulative visceral punch of later operas. Instead the orchestration is more notable for elegant solo passages, very well played by the members of the orchestra.
Eloise Lally takes us first to Capellio’s, a bar which despite the long programme essay on Letizia Battaglia, the Italian photographer who is “a strong influence on our production” is clearly based on Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks. The Capulets gather, Capellio’s daughter Giuletta waits on tables, Lorenzo (no longer the holy friar of Shakespeare) tends bar. When Romeo phones suggesting peace talks, the underlying tension surrounding Giuletta surfaces: she loves Romeo, but is to be married to Tebaldo, a Capulet.
By the interval a full-scale gang war is in progress. Despite the noble efforts of the Chorus (seven of them to represent both Capulets and Montagues) the naturalism of the staging simply shows up the artificiality of the original: the slow-motion action and incessant gun-waving (does no one ever fire one?) veer towards the ridiculous.
The second half, in a half-destroyed quarter of the city, is better, tauter, more dependent on character relationships – and, incidentally, closer to Shakespeare – but it is still difficult to be moved or excited by the actions of those on stage.
Samantha Price excels as Romeo even though the whole concept of a travesty part is foreign to Lally’s view of the opera. Her mezzo exudes authority from the start, she finds the agony and the tenderness in her scenes with Giuletta and she is always as expressive physically as vocally. Jessica Cale negotiates the demands of Giuletta’s part with ease, singing beautifully while making less of an impact as a character.
Timothy Nelson (a sonorous Capellio) and Brenton Spiteri (Tebaldo, at his best in the second act confrontation with Romeo) give sound support, but the most human figure is Masimba Ushe’s avuncular Lorenzo. Alphonse Cemin is alert and dynamic in the pit, getting some especially fine woodwind playing from his orchestra.
Reviewed on 1st March 2025.
