Bellini’s The Capulets and The Montagues; English Touring Opera, Spring Tour 2025, Sat 22 Feb – Sat 26 Apr, 4☆☆☆☆. Review: Clare Colvin.

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith.

Bellini’s The Capulets and The Montagues, English Touring Opera, Spring Tour 2025, Sat 22 Feb – Sat 26 Apr, 4☆☆☆☆. Review: Clare Colvin.

“New York Mafia twist to Bellini’s tragic love opera.”

First of all, forget about the Shakespeare version of events. The plot of Bellini’s opera came from a novella written by Luigi Da Porto in 1594, as no doubt did Shakespeare’s tragedy too, during the Bard’s research through Italian Renaissance romances for story plots. Main difference is that there’s no Friar Lawrence to provide the tragic pivot of poisonous potions; instead it’s Lorenzo, a servant of the Capellio family, in whom Giulietta has confided her secret love for Romeo of the rival Montague family.

Director Eloise Lally further distances the opera from the conventional image of the young Juliet on the palazzo balcony by setting the scene in a 1970s New York of Mean Streets and Goodfellas. The beleaguered Capulets’ headquarters is the family restaurant of Capellio’s where Giulietta (Jessica Cale) is resisting her dominant father’s will to force her into marriage with Brenton Spiteri’s Tebaldo, his chosen heir to take over the family firm. Meanwhile Romeo, after earlier having killed Giulietta’s brother in a fight, has returned to propose a truce. Negotiations inevitably break down in a telephone conversation between Capellio (Timothy Nelson) and Romeo (Samantha Price). Despite Giulietta’s protests, plans to unite her with Tebaldo go swiftly ahead. Crates of Prosecco are brought in, together with bouquets of white flowers, and a tiered wedding cake.

The updating (marginally reminiscent of Jonathan Miller’s Little Italy of Rigoletto?) works well, and there are some pleasing set pieces such as Giulietta’s candle-lit bier with the bride resting supine in wedding dress. The Act Two exterior of the bomb-blasted restaurant is a reminder of many pictures unhappily seen nowadays on real life tele-news too. The scenes of violence and waving of pistols contrast with Bellini’s sublime music, splendidly performed by the orchestra under French conductor and pianist Alphonse Cemin in his company debut.

Welsh soprano Jessica Cale (a First Prize winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Awards) is a lyrical Giulietta, and Maltese-Australian tenor Brenton Spiteri’s Tebaldo a heroic-toned Tebaldo. Fine singing too from Timothy Nelson’s heavy father Capellio, mezzo Samantha Price’s fiery Romeo and bass Masimba Ushe’s conflicted Lorenzo.

The end is left open, though a director’s note would like us to conclude that after Romeo’s death Giulietta will cast off her repressive family and go it alone as an independent woman. Promising to meet her lover again in death, she leaves carrying a loaded pistol. For suicide or future self-defence? Your choice.

Creatives

Conductor: Alphonse Cemin

Director: Eloise Lally

Designer: Lily Arnold; Lighting Designer: Peter Harrison

Production pictures: Richard Hubert Smith

ETO Touring until 01 June: englishtouringopera.org.uk. Next performance of The Capulets and The Montagues: www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk 1 March