Carnegie Hall Opener Canceled

Stagehands strike nixes Opening Night.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

There's a new soloist (but no audience) as Carnegie Hall goes dark for opening night.
Original photo © Carnegie Hall. Photoshop by the author.

In a move that sent ripples through the New York classical music community, Carnegie Hall has been forced to cancel its opening night gala featuring Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Joshua Bell and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

The Doge Dies Early

Plácido Domingo as  Simon Boccanegra.
Photo by Monika Rittershaus for the Berlin State Opera.

Financial Issues Poison OONY Boccanegra.

The Opera Orchestra of New York issued a statement today canceling a planned concert performance of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, which would have starred Plácido Domingo in the title role. The performance was to be conducted by Alberto Veronesi.

The reason for the cancellation: a loss of anticipated funding. Tickets purchased can be donated to the company, used towards a future performance, or simply refunded.

"We regret having to cancel the upcoming presentation of Simon Boccanegra," board chairman Norman Raben said in a press release. "As a board, we have a mandate to be fiscally responsible."

He added: "With the loss of funding for this production we had no choice but to cancel the concert. The Opera Orchestra of New York has a long legacy of presenting operas in concert on New York’s greatest stages and our primary goal is to maintain the company's vision and ensure the longevity of the institution."

OONY was founded in 1971 by conductor Eve Queler, with a mission to present concert performances of operas without the traditional accoutrements of costumes and sets. In a long-running series of concerts at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, the ensemble has presented New Yorkers with rarities like Wagner's Rienzi, Meyerbeer's L'Africaine and Massenet's La Navarraise. Recent concerts included a revival of Rienzi and a fall performance of Cilea's Adriana Lecouvrer.

The press release also stated that the company will announce its 2012-2013 slate of operas in concert in coming weeks.

Contact the author: E-mail Superconductor editor Paul Pelkonen

The Airing of the Grievances: the Worst of 2011

From the City Opera to the Battle of Lincoln Center.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be a better way... a Festivus, for the rest of us!!!"
Festivus prophet Frank Costanza (Jerry Stiller. with pole), acolyte Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards)
and his disciples Jerry and George. Image framegrabbed from Seinfeld "The Strike"  © 1997 NBC.

Today is December 23, the date some New Yorkers celebrate Festivus, the holiday invented at a toy store by one Frank Costanza while fighting over a Cabbage Patch™doll.* Originally observed every year in the Costanza household, Festivus is a simple holiday. It requires a large aluminum pole (instead of a tree.) At the Festivus table, there is a simple meal, followed by the Airing of the Grievances, and then something called the Feats of Strength.

In the spirit of the season, we here at Superconductor celebrate Festivus with our first ever Worst-of list for 2011. There are eleven items on the list, in deference to the year. So set up the aluminum pole, and let's get to the worst things that happened in the classical music industry--or at least the ones that we covered this year.

Ed. Note: The closing of Opera Boston happened the day after this piece went to press. We've added it to the bottom of the list.

Cancellation fever strikes.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2011-2012 season was marred by all manner of cancellations. Ben Heppner and Gary Lehman both pulled out of the title role in Siegfried, the latter one week before the prima. Angela Gheorghiu cancelled Faust for this year, citing "artistic differences" with director Dez McAnuff. (She was replaced by Marina Poplavskaya.) Just to be sure, the Romanian diva cancelled her 2012 contract as well. It's a matter of some conjecture if she sings at the Met anytime soon.

The decline and fall of the New York City Opera.
This one had been brewing for a while. With its labor contracts up, the decision of NYCO general manager George Steel to ditch his company's longtime digs and embark on a (sort of) odyssey across New York recalls the decision by fictional British rock group Spinal Tap to replace their songs with the blues-jazz (or is it jazz-blues?) noodling of bassist Derek Smalls. This ongoing story includes a protracted battle with the unions for both the orchestra and chorus, a bitter dispute that is currently before a federally appointed mediator.

(For more on the slow death-spiral of New York City Opera, read Fred Cohen's excellent (and educational piece in Opera News: The Ballad of NYCO.)

Salvatore Licitra dies in a motorcycle accident.

A number of singers passed away this year, but the most shocking death was the loss of the talented Italian tenor Salvatore Licitra. Following a motorcycle accident in his native Sicily, Mr. Licitra died of complications following a brain injury. He wasn't wearing a helmet.

Bankruptcy on Broad Street.

Labor troubles between symphony boards and musicians have been a common thread this year, with industrial action taken in Louisville and Detroit. But the venerable Philadelphia Orchestra became the first major American ensemble to file Chapter 11 this year. This was either a loud cry for help or an attempt to play hardball with the union. Eventually, the union blinked, and the season started on time. The effects of this action are still reverberating in Philadelphia.

The Metropolitan Opera's new start times.

As long as we're airing grievances, the Met's new 7:30pm start times make the relaxing activity of going to the opera house a mad dash through New York's subway system. Citing a survey of opera-goers taken in 2011, the Met pushed back all of their start times by half an hour. That's so people driving in from the suburbs can get home a little earlier, but a little hard on us New Yorkers. Maybe it's a plan to close area restaurants around Lincoln Center and sell more little sandwiches at the Revlon Bar?

Peter Gelb vs. Bradley Wilber
The most shameful act by the Metropolitan Opera this year. The company sent a "cease and desist" letter to Brad Wilber, an upstate librarian and author of the 'Metropolitan Opera Futures' page, a website that offered uncannily accurate predictions of forthcoming seasons at the Met.  (The Met claimed that the site was making it harder to negotiate advance contracts with artists.) We miss Mr. Wilber's cybernetic crystal ball, which had a knack for telling you what was coming up on the Met schedule and what direction the company was heading in. 

James Levine's Labor Day slip.

The ailing conductor was placed on the disabled list in May, stepping down from his Boston and Tanglewood obligations to rest and recover. On Labor Day weekend, Mr. Levine fell while walking in New England. Emergency surgery was required. As a result, Mr. Levine hasn't conducted anything since Wozzeck and Die Walküre in the spring. He is not scheduled to conduct at the Met until at least the 2013 season, but retains the post of Music Director.

The Music Director's (literal) fall from grace led Met general manager Peter Gelb to elevate Fabio Luisi to the post of Principal Conductor at the Met. Mr. Luisi agreed to salvage the new productions of Don Giovanni, Siegfried, and next year: Götterdämmerung. But the schedule-shuffling required Mr. Luisi to cancel a number of European and North American  commitments: concerts with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Symphony. He also bailed out of a Rome production of Richard Strauss' Elektra, three weeks before the premiere.

EMI Records sold.

The proud record label, which made the first major recordings of Herbert von Karajan with the Vienna Philharmonic and helped set the tone for the development of the modern classical recording industry is being folded into Vivendi, owners of Decca and Deutsche Grammophon. Will the EMI brand (which has been home to artists like Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna, Plácido Domingo and Jacqueline du Pré) survive into the next decade, or will it suffer the same fate as Philips Classics?

The "Machine" Malfunctions.

Miscues and malfunctions marred the 2011 premieres of Die Walküre and Siegfried, the second and third installments in the Met's new production of Wagner's Ring Cycle. Deborah Voigt fell off the set on opening night of Walküre. (She was OK.) The first two Siegfrieds had clunks, thunks, and one outright dead stop (in Act III) on the second night. The action was hastily moved to the apron of the stage. 

The Occupation of Lincoln Center--by the NYPD.

On Dec. 1, the night Metropolitan Opera's final performance of Satyagraha, Lincoln Center was closed off. Hearing that Occupy Wall Street was planning a demonstration, the NYPD and Lincoln Center security barricaded the entire plaza against the arrival of peaceful demonstrators. This shameful behavior led to the Occupiers having their say on the sidewalk. Speakers included songwriter Lou Reed, his wife Laurie Anderson, and Satyagraha composer Philip Glass, who read from the Bhagavad-Gita.

Opera Boston goes under.
A late addition to this list--because it happened after this post went to press. On Dec. 23, two days Christmas, Opera Boston announced that it was ceasing operations, effective immediately. The company reported that it could not continue due to a $500,000 operating deficit and insufficient fund-raising. According to a report in the Boston Globe, six members of the 17-member board were against folding. So they weren't invited to the meeting when the company was folded. So much for democracy.

Visit the rest of the 2011 Year in Reviews, our account of the year that went to "'11".

*According to Wikipedia, the "Festivus" holiday was actually invented in 1966 by Dan O'Keefe, whose son Daniel wrote the 1997 Seinfeld episode "The Strike."

Obituary: Salvatore Licitra, 1968-2011

Salvatore Licitra in La Forza del Destino.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2006 The Metropolitan Opera.

Tenor Salvatore Licitra, who was severely injured on Aug. 27 while riding his Vespa motorcycle in Ragusa, Sicily, has died. He was 43.

The singer was riding on his scooter when he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and crashed into a brick wall. He was not wearing a helmet. He was was rushed to Garibaldi Hospital and moved into the intensive care unit with serious injuries to his head and chest.

Mr. Licitra lay in a coma for nine days. He never regained consciousness.

Born in Bern, Switzerland, Mr. Licitra fell into opera singing after a brief career as a graphic designer. A student at Carlo Bergonzi's voice academy in Bussetto, Italy, he made his debut there in 1998 in Un Ballo en Maschera. Later, he was hired by Riccardo Muti for a production of La Forza del Destino at La Scala and his rise to fame was complete.

Mr. Licitra rose to fame in New York when he substituted for Luciano Pavarotti in a 2002 performance of Tosca. Mr. Pavarotti had cancelled his appearance two hours before curtain. The charismatic tenor made a strong impression as Mario Cavaradossi, and the press started referring to him as a logical heir to Mr. Pavarotti's crown.


The singer made a specialty of Verdi heroes: Radames in Aida, Don Alvaro in La Forza del Destino, and King Gustavo in Un Ballo in Maschera. Armed with a sturdy instrument and dynamic stage presence, the singer also appeared in new productions of Puccini's Il Trittico and Tosca. He was then hired  to sing Turiddu in the traditional pairing of Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci. 

When another tenor cancelled, Mr. Licitra added the role of Canio in the later opera, singing both tenor roles in the famous pair. Earlier this year, Mr. Licitra was booked to sing the title role in the company's revival of Ernani next February. He pulled out of those performances in July. Marcello Giordani will sing the part, splitting the six performances with fellow tenor Roberto Lo Blasio.

Mr. Licitra is survived by his parents, his brother, and his girlfriend, who was riding on the scooter when it crashed. She was wearing a helmet.

Anna Netrebko Cancels Japan Jaunt

Diva withdraws from Met tour, citing Chernobyl concerns.

She'll take her candle and go home. Anna Netrebko in a publicity photo for Anna Bolena.
Photo © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera is on its way to Japan, but Anna Netrebko is not.

The Russian diva, scheduled to sing Mimi in the company's touring production of La bohéme has announced her 11th-hour withdrawal from the tour. The decision was announced last night in a New York Times article by Daniel J. Wakin. The article included the following statement from the Met press office: "Ms. Netrebko changed her mind having lived through the tragedy of Chernobyl." You can read the full article here.

The decision of Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb to carry on the Japan tour despite the danger of leaked radiation from the damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima has been an unpopular one at the world's most famous opera company. The company arrived in Japan last night.

Ms. Netrebko is the fifth major artist to cancel on the Met's ill-starred tour of the Orient. So far, casualties include tenors Jonas Kaufman and Joseph Calleja, who both cited concerns about radiation leakage from the damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima. Olga Borodina cancelled, citing a need to rest her voice. Conductor James Levine, who is taking a five-month sabbatical for health reasons.


But the soprano, whose face adorns the Met's current marketing campaign and season ticket drive, is currently the biggest star at the Met. The diva is scheduled to open the season with a new production of Donizetti's Anna Bolena, a Metropolitan Opera premiere. In March, she will sing the title role in a new staging of Manon. Both performances will be included in the Met's schedule of Live in HD broadcasts for next year.

The Met's tour includes presentations of La bohéme, Lucia di Lammermoor and the company's new staging of Don Carlo. The cancellations have required some role shuffling. Barbara Frittoli, scheduled to sing Elisabeth in Don Carlo, will switch over to Bohéme. Russian soprano Marina Poplavskaya, who created the role of Elisabeth in this production, will step in to sing the role. She cancelled a Moscow concert appearance to join the Met in Japan.

The touring company includes 350 Met stage hands, extras, and musicians. The roster of and an impressive roster of singers: Mariusz Kwiecen, John Relyea, Rene Pape, Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Diana Damrau. Tenors Marcelo Álvarez and Rolando Villazon, returning after a lengthy hiatus due to voice problems, will add firepower to the three productions. Met principal guest conductor Fabio Luisi will take James Levine's place on the podium. Gianandrea Noseda will also conduct.

The Met's two-week tour will conclude on June 14 with a concert in Tokyo. The program of that concert is listed as "TBA."

James Levine Goes On the Disabled List

James Levine leading the BSO in happier times.
Photo by Michael Lutch © 2009 Boston Symphony Orchestra

Conductor James Levine, who has battled back problems, cancer, and shoulder injuries in the last three years, has announced that he has cancelled all of his engagements until October.

The Metropolitan Opera music director, who stepped down from his concurrent post as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra this Spring, has announced that he will not be leading the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra's scheduled May 15 concert at Carnegie Hall. Fabio Luisi, who accepted the post of Met principal guest conductor last year, will step in, and lead Strauss' warhorse Don Juan in place of the scheduled Debussy.

Mr, Levine will not be joining the opera company on its scheduled tour of Japan next month. Mr. Luisi, currently leading performances of Ariadne auf Naxos, will take his place. Met opera-goers can expect Mr. Levine to return to service on Oct. 13. He is slated to lead the premiere of the Met's new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni.

However, the conductor will honor his commitment to lead the last two performances of Die Walküre at the Met this season, scheduled for Monday, May 9 and Saturday, May 14. Saturday's performance is also the Met's HD broadcast of the opera, starring Deborah Voigt and Bryn Terfel.

The cancellations also apply to Mr. Levine's commitments at the summer Tanglewood festival. The Boston Symphony Orchestra is expected to announce a slate of guest conductors to lead the orchestra's summer schedule at the venerated festival in Lenox, MA. As of this writing, the planned Tanglewood performance of Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande is already nixed.

In related news, the Boston Symphony Orchestra has announced its 2011-2012 season, the first in seven years without Mr. Levine's influence. Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter will lead the opening concerts of the season, as the venerable orchestra continues its hurried search for a new Music Director.

James Levine Cancels (some) Met Performances

James Levine.

Metropolitan Opera music director James Levine has withdrawn from upcoming performances of Das Rheingold and Il Trovatore, according to a Metropolitan Opera press release.

The Met statement said that Mr. Levine needs time “to recover from recent procedures to alleviate back pain", as reported in the New York Times by Daniel J. Wakin.

The announcement comes amidst preparations for a special May 1 gala celebrating James Levine's 40 seasons at the Metropolitan Opera.

The 67-year old conductor, who rocked the classical world earlier this month when announced that he would be stepping down as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra as of September, has been suffering from complications following spinal surgery last year. These back problems are the latest in a slew of injuries for Mr. Levine.

Mr. Levine last conducted in New York at the Juilliard School, where he led enthusiastically received performances of Smetana's The Bartered Bride. One week later, he was forced to cancel a Boston Symphony Orchestra run of Mahler's Symphony No. 9, as well as appearances at that orchestra's short spring tour.

Met principal guest conductor Fabio Luisi
will lead Das Rheingold.

He will be replaced for the two upcoming performances of Das Rheingold (March 30th and April 2nd) by Met principal guest conductor Fabio Luisi.

Marco Armiliato will conduct the four scheduled performances of Il Trovatore on April 20, 23, 27 and 30.

As of this writing, Mr. Levine is still scheduled to conduct the upcoming revival of Berg's Wozzeck (opening April 6) and the company's forthcoming run of Die Walküre starring Deborah Voigt and Bryn Terfel.

Opera Review: Roméo is Sleeping

Roméo et Juliette at the Met

Piotr Beczala and Hei-Kyung Hong
at the rehearsal of Roméo et Juliette.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera

Monday night's performance of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at the Metropolitan Opera featured strong performances from tenor Piotr Beczala and soprano Hei-Kyung Hong in an otherwise unexciting revival of the Shakespearean opera.

This revival has already made headlines for the 11th-hour withdrawal of soprano Angela Gheorghiu. Her replacement was Hei-Kyung Hong. The 51-year old Korean soprano may be a little older than Shakespeare's 14-year old Juliette, but she sang boldly, going up for the high notes in Juliette's Waltz even though her voice thinned noticeably at the top.


As the performance continued (and her voice warmed up) Ms. Hong displayed the soprano warmth and bloom that has made her a longtime fixture at the Met. She was strong in the difficult fourth act, with the long "floating bed" duet with Piotr Beczala, followed by the difficult Potion Scene. Her onstage collapse the dramatic climax of the evening.

Tenor Piotr Beczala was a bluff, enthusiastic Roméo, singing with ardor in the balcony scene and generating real chemistry with his leading lady on the floating bed that is the setting for their Act IV duet. However, he looked lost in the Act III fight scene, standing about without any direction after killing Tybalt, as if the director failed to give him any directions at that point in the opera.

The biggest surprise of the evening was James Morris in the brief, but memorable role of Friar Laurence. The Met's former Wotan sounded ideal in this paternal role, using his woolly, well-oiled bass voice to give gravity to the priest's scenes in Acts III and IV. Mr. Morris has had some rough outings at the Met lately, but this short part was well suited to his fading fach.

Guy Joosten's staging uses the plays Renaissance setting and the idea of star-crossed lovers for a production that combines astrolabes, clocks, trompe l'oeil paintings and the streets of Olde Verona. Occasionally, the back wall cracks open to reveal cosmic landscapes, more suited to the work of Carl Sagan than Shakespeare. These ultimately prove distracting, although the "flying bed" duet remains a theatrical coup.

The performance was undermined by the conducting of tenor-turned-maestro Plàcido Domingo, which lacked that degree of lift that can make Gounod's melodic lines soar. That, combined with the librettists' decision to boil almost all the fight scenes and much of the excitement from Shakespeare's play  made for a long evening. But that's not the Met's fault.

Angela Ankles Faust

Marina Poplavskaya to sing Marguerite in new Met production.

Angela Gheorghiu,
in between cancellations.

Angela Gheorghiu is out of the Metropolitan Opera's current run of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, but the dark-eyed Romanian diva continues to make headlines. The latest: she has dropped the bomb on her commitment to sing Marguerite in the Met's new production of Gounod's Faust. The cause was cited as that old stand-by: "artistic differences."

The cancellation is the latest by Ms. Gheorghiu, a soprano who rose to international fame after she was cast (by Sir Georg Solti) in a 1994 Covent Garden production of La Traviata. The string started in 1998, when she and her husband, tenor Roberto Alagna, attempted to inflate their fees to appear in Franco Zeffirelli's second Met production of that same opera. They were replaced by soprano Patricia Racette and Argentinean tenor Marcelo Álvarez, and the show went on anyway.

More recently, Ms. Gheorghiu pulled out of the Dec. 31 2009 prima of the Met's new David McVicar staging of Bizet's Carmen. An early 2010 run in La Traviata (that same Zeffirelli production) featured the singer, although conductor Leonard Slatkin was fired withdrew for personal reasons after the prima.

The Roméo cancellation is the most recent. Ms. Gheorghiu pulled out of all seven performances of the opera this season, citing what was reported to be a month-long case of the flu. Her replacement is the experienced Korean soprano Hei-Kyung Hong, who was initially engaged to "cover" these performances.

A gilded cage: a scene from the ENO Faust.
Photo by Catherine Ashmore © 2010 English National Opera.

Faust was one opera that Ms. Gheorghiu actually sang at the Met recently, taking the role of Marguerite in the company's laughably bad 2005 staging of the opera, the one that featured a cadre of choristers waving tricolor French flags and René Pape attempting to look "menacing" in a rubber devil suit. It has never been repeated.

Its replacement is this new staging by Canadian director Des MacAnuff. Mr. McAnuff updates the opera to the 20th century and makes Goethe's medieval mystic into a mad scientist working to finish the atomic bomb, is bound to be some improvement. It is a collaboration between the Met and the English National Opera, and has already run in London to generally positive reviews.

Ms. Gheorghiu will be replaced in Faust by Russian diva-on-the-rise Marina Poplavskaya, who made an excellent impression at the Met this season in new productions of Verdi's Don Carlo as well as the lead role in La Traviata. Hopefully, Ms. Poplavskaya will be able to sing in French as well as she does in Italian.

For more about the Met's 2011-2012 plans, check out this preview of the upcoming season.

James Levine Nixes Boston Gig, Tour

James Levine, conducting at Tanglewood.

Conductor James Levine, who has done double duty as the maestro of the Metropolitan Opera and the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 2004 has cancelled his remaining Spring 2011 appearances with the BSO.

According to a report on Boston.Com, the official web portal of the Boston Globe, the 68-year old conductor is suffering from an unspecified ailment connected to a surgical procedure on his back, which Mr. Levine underwent last year. This same ailment forced Mr. Levine to withdraw from four performances of Mahler's Ninth Symphony last weekend.

The late cancellation will force the BSO to scramble to find replacement conductors for the two concert series that Mr. Levine was scheduled to conduct this spring.
The programs include:

• The world premiere of Harrison Birtwistle's Violin Concerto. Christian Tetzlaff is the soloist. 
• An exploration of Mozart and Schoenberg featuring pianist Maurizio Pollini.

The cancellations also apply to the Orchestra's short East Coast tour, planned for the middle of March. The band is scheduled to play three nights at Carnegie Hall, followed by appearances at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. According to the orchestra's Facebook page, changes to the programs will be announced tomorrow morning.


The 68-year old conductor has suffered from a slew of injuries and ailments in recent years, including a broken clavicle (suffered during an onstage fall in 2006), a bout with cancer and a series of back problems. He has been forced to do all of his conducting from a special chair, and rarely makes onstage appearances after an opera performance.  Mr. Levine's ailments have forced him to cancel his Tanglewood appearances in 2008 and 2010, leaving the orchestra to find replacement conductors for their summer season.

All these injuries have led to some speculation that Mr. Levine may be ready to step into a lesser, advisory position with the Met and the BSO. Mr. Levine is in the last year of his Boston contract.

Met General Manager Peter Gelb denied these rumors at the company's season-announcing press conference, claiming that Mr. Levine will have many more years at the musical helm of the Met.

As of this writing, there was no statement from the Met regarding whether Mr. Levine would also cancel his upcoming commitments at Lincoln Center. Those obligations include:

• Two performances of Das Rheingold at the end of March.
  
• Four performances of Alban Berg's Wozzeck in early April
  
• Seven performances of Richard Wagner's Die Walküre, the second chapter in the Met's multi-million-dollar production of Wagner's Ring.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Roméo et Juliette

Hei-Kyung Hong will sing Juliette.
Photo © The Metropolitan Opera

Charles Gounod followed up the smash success of Faust with this ultra-romantic setting of William Shakespeare's tragedy. This is one of the most succesful operatic settings of a Shakespeare play. By paring down the drama and focusing on the two young lovers, the librettist team of Jules Barbier and Michele Carré created the ideal vehicle for a tenor and soprano to sing gorgeous French love-music on the stage.

The best known highlight from this opera is "Je veux vivre", also known as Juliette's Waltz, a lilting showpiece for the diva that remains one of the best tunes Gounod ever wrote. This revival of the Met's 2005 production by Guy Joosten and Johannes Lieckar emphasizes the work's Renaissance origins, putting the lovers in cosmic settings including an onstage orrery and an astrolabe. This revival pairs tenor Piotr Beczala (fresh off his successful Rodolfo in La bohème) with Korean soprano Hei-Kyung Hong. Ms. Hong has been announced as a last-minute replacement for Romanian diva Angela Gheorghiu, who cancelled the night before the premiere.

Did you know?
While this is the best known and most frequently performed version of the Shakespeare play, there have been 24 operatic adaptations of the play. Other notable versions include Hector Berlioz' symphonic drama of the same title, Vincenzo Bellini's I Capuletti e il Montecchi ("The Capulets and the Montagues") and Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's musical West Side Story.

Recording Recommendations
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus cond. Emil Cooper (Sony, 1947, released 2010)
Roméo Jussi Björling
Juliette: Bidú Sayão
Friar Laurence: Nicola Moscena
Mercutio: John Brownlee
Fans of French opera have long known about this famous Feb. 1, 1947 broadcast recording which paired Swedish super-tenor Jussi Björling with Brazilian diva Bidú Sayão. And it's been available before on the German label Cantus. But this classic set, recorded from the stage of the old opera house is a welcome arrival in the catalogue. It captures the young Mr. Björling at his most ardent, soaring to new heights in Romeo's romantic music. He is well-paired with Ms. Sayão and the set crackles with the energy of their interactions. Conducted by Emil Cooper, who specialized in the French repertory at the old Met.

Orchestra and Chorus of Toulouse cond. Michel Plasson (EMI Classics, 1998)
Roméo Roberto Alagna
Juliette: Angela Gheorghiu
Friar Laurence: Jose Van Dam
Mercutio: Simon Keenlyside

The so-called "love couple" made a number of opera recordings in the 1990s for EMI. Among them, this much-needed three-disc set of Roméo et Juliette. Roberto Alagna always sounds better when singing in French. Here, he tackles the role of Shakespeare's ardent young lover. His performance is all the more convincing because he is wooing Angela Gheorghiu, his wife. Their chemistry is what drives this set. Michel Plasson offers his usual, expert interpretation of Gounod and there is a fine supporting cast.