Topic: Placido Domingo

Stunning, sensual Romeo and Juliette delights Metropolitan Opera fans

By Christine Anne Piesyk | December 16, 2007 |

When was the last time you heard applause in a movie theater? Playing to a packed theater, the 2007-08 Live from the Met HD season opener — Romeo and Juliette — came just in time to please a Christmas audience who were not the least bit shy about breaking the otherwise absolute silence for a round of applause…

The performance was a live worldwide broadcast of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliette, the operatic rendition of Shakespeare’s classic and tragic love story. It was a stunning performance. Though the stage itself was stark, the backdrop of moonscapes and nebula created a romantic, dreamy setting for the lovers. From a gala birthday ball with grand costumes and elaborate masks the the sweeping declarations of love in the “balcony scene,” to a sensual wedding night on a softly draped bed that seemed to drift among the stars on a moonlight breeze, Romeo and Juliette seemed to offer individual vignettes, paintings for our imagination to savor. «Read the rest of this article»

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The Met’s high-def ‘Romeo & Juliet’ broadcast live at Green Hills, Opryland

By Christine Anne Piesyk | December 13, 2007 |

Gounod’s sensual interpretation of Romeo and Juliet launches this season’s The Metropolitan Opera HD Live, a high definition global broadcast live from Lincoln Center in New York City on Saturday at noon CST. Tenor Robert Alagna and Soprano Anna Netrebko (at left) are Shakespeare’s legendary star-crossed lovers in what promises to the Met’s Christmas gift to the world. Placido Domingo conducts.

Alagna is Romeo of the Montagues, enchanted at first sight with the lovely Juliet (Netrebko) of the Capulets, caring not that their families exist in a state of hatred. Youth, beauty and passion rule, and the innocence of their newfound love must scale more than the balcony rail in pursuit of happiness beyond a feud not of their making.

From the tentative steps of a first dance to the sensual nuance of first love, the audience is drawn into a carefully spun web of intrigue and tragedy. The world knows and loves the story; this transcendent adaptation adds a new dimension to a treasured classic. «Read the rest of this article»

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