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Capulets vs Montagues, A Sports Event? Milano
Cremona (Teatro Amilcare Ponchielli)
01/31/2025 - & February 2, 2025
Vincenzo Bellini: I Capuleti e i Montecchi
Annalisa Stroppa (Romeo), Benedetta Torre (Giulietta), Matteo Falcier (Tebaldo), Matteo Guerzè (Lorenzo), Baopeng Wang (Capellio)
Coro OperaLombardia, Diego Maccagnola (chorus master), Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali di Milano, Sebastiano Rolli (conductor)
Andrea De Rosa (stage director), Daniele Spanò (sets), Ilaria Ariemme (costumes), Pasquale Mari (lighting)
A. Stroppa, B. Torre
I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Bellini’s take on Romeo and Juliet, was inspired by the original Italian source rather than Shakespeare’s play. Despite Felice Romani’s poetically rich lyrics, this work is dramatically less powerful than Gounod’s more famous Roméo et Juliette. However, it is at least as powerful musically. Here, Bellini’s melodies are as haunting as those in his more popular operas La sonnambula, Norma and I puritani. The assignment of the role of Romeo to a mezzo rather than a tenor affords a more sensual bel canto musical score. Though it is firmly established in the repertoire, I Capuleti e i Montecchi is not a work often performed.
Essential to the opera’s success is casting, namely excellent singers for the roles of Romeo, Giulietta and Tebaldo, as well as an adequate Capellio and Lorenzo, which are supporting roles. In this endeavour, Teatro Ponchielli was successful. One could not have hoped for a better loving couple. Lyric soprano Bernadette Torre had already impressed in this same role in Rome five years ago at the astonishing age of twenty‑three. Torre’s light and fruity timbre made this Giulietta both touching and credible as the unfortunate young woman. Without reverting to excess, she was able to convey sadness through her timbre as well as her phrasing in her Act I “O quante volte”. It’s hard to imagine a more ravishing voice evoking femininity and youth.
Italy’s Annalisa Stroppa was also a perfect choice for the role of Romeo. A leading mezzo on major European stages, Stroppa was a striking Preziosilla in La forza del destino in Parma a couple of years ago and an extraordinary Dorabella in Ettore Scola’s memorable staging of Così fan tutte ici in 2018 in Turin. Her agile voice, beautifully warm timbre, excellent technique and respectable acting made her a credible and charismatic Romeo. Though she does not specialize in trouser roles, she was convincing as a young man thanks to her posture and onstage deportment. Stroppa’s voice is well‑placed and she has an impressively wide range. Her upper register is bright and her lower notes remarkable. Without artificially darkening her voice, her Act I “Se Romeo t’uccise un figlio” was effective thanks to her expressiveness and her amazingly good diction.
Despite an impressive voice, Italian tenor Matteo Falcier was not an ideal choice as Tebaldo. His high notes were well supported but his timbre isn’t right for an ardent young man. His voice has a certain nasal quality that is stylistically incompatible with bel canto.
Chinese bass Baopeng Wang was an imposing Capellio, both vocally and dramatically. Endowed with a dark and deep bass, he managed to convey authority and high station. At twenty‑six, Wang looked old enough to be Giulietta’s father. Kudos to the makeup artists at Teatro Ponchielli.
Italy’s Matteo Guerzè was Lorenzo, the Capulet’s family priest. His baritone is pleasant and he moves well on stage, but the role does not allow him much singing, which is a pity, as one would have liked to have heard more from him. In this updated staging, he is unlikely to be the family’s priest, despite the cross he wears over his shabby garb. Director Andrea De Rosa made him more of Giulietta’s pimp, bringing Romeo in and out of her bedroom. In Bellini’s opera, the reason why Romeo kills himself thinking Giulietta is actually dead is better explained than in Gounod’s version: after Giulietta’s death, Capellio is suspicious and keeps him prisoner, hence his inability to explain the fake death to Romeo.
In contrast to the overall beautiful singing, the staging left a lot to be desired. The epoch was updated to the present day, though there was nothing to gain by this, other than the scant possibility of appealing to a younger audience and obviously less expenditure. While the first reasoning is dubious, the latter is understandable, especially in a small town of 70,000 inhabitants. The venue, the beautiful Teatro Ponchielli, has a capacity of 1,100, enormous for a small town. Two performances are given, implying 3% of the town’s citizens would be in attendance; a magnificent and enviable figure. Nonetheless, such a theatre cannot justify lavish productions. Hence, the spartan approach to staging.
Daniele Spanò’s simple set consisted of Giulietta’s bedroom centrestage in the opening scene. Unfortunately, it consisted of a mattress and an Ikea lamp, rather incongruous for a bedroom in the home of one of Verona’s most prominent families, no matter the epoch. Giulietta is listening to her headphones when Romeo is helped into her bedroom by family priest Lorenzo. The bed was surrounded by a fence on three sides, where the Capulets stood to listen to Giulietta’s father, Capellio, as if in a stadium.
Ilaria Ariemme’s costumes gave a nod to West Side Story, Bernstein’s take on Romeo and Juliet: a training suit for Romeo and an ugly nightgown for Giulietta. Attempting to make Bellini’s opera into West Side Story is incongruous, as the conflict here is clearly between two noble families and not gangs. All men, whether Capulets or Montagues, wear scarves with the inscription Capuleti or in the case of Romeo, Montecchi. Thus the conflict is not between Guelphs and Ghibellines, as Felice Romani’s libretto often states, but rather a conflict between two sports teams.
The final act takes place in the cemetery where Giulietta’s body lies, represented by thin slabs of faux marble with the tombs of both Capulets and Montagues side by side, which would have been highly unlikely.
Interestingly, Romeo does not kill Tebaldo (Tybalt) in Bellini’s opera. The two stop fighting when they hear Giulietta’s funeral procession. The two men even console one another, a much less bellicose and violent account of the story.
The finale of Act I, “Al furor che si ridesta”, was the highlight of the evening, thanks to its beautiful melody, the excellent blending of Romeo and Giulietta’s voices and later the concertante of the other protagonists.
Conductor Sebastiano Rolli’s pacing of the music was truly refined – bel canto at its best. The finale, “Deh! tu, bell’anima”, was beautifully sung but less magnificent. Overall, this was a glorious evening of bel canto thanks to Stroppa and Torre, but most of all thanks to the timeless magnificence of Bellini’s enduring work.
Ossama el Naggar
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