Lewek shines in Palm Beach Opera’s impassioned “Romeo et Juliette”
Palm Beach Opera opened its season Friday with a passionately sung, traditionally staged performance of Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, with the warmth of the dramatic action almost compensating for frigid temperatures that brought people to the Kravis Center in furs and long coats.
As Juliette, the soprano Kathryn Lewek gave an affecting performance. Dark-haired and diminutive, she came off as shy and vulnerable even as she belted out world-class coloratura. Lewek is best-known for incomparable performances of the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Magic Flute, a virtuoso role that demands impeccable speed and precision at the top of the vocal range.
In the first-act aria known as “Juliette’s Waltz,” her brilliant runs and trills vividly expressed the teenager’s effervescence and enchantment with life. But her success in that aria, wasn’t just about high-speed singing. She brought sensuous phrasing to quieter, more lyric passages, drawing out phrases and foreshadowing the passionate, serious woman she would grow into over the course of the opera.
Her lustrous voice and dramatic feel for the role was apparent throughout. Lewek, Stern and the orchestra combined for a powerful evocation of the dark, brooding music that arrives with her terrible realization of her lover’s true identity. In the opening of the balcony scene, clad in a long white gown and evocatively illuminated by moonlight, she gave deep expression to the famous words “Oh Romeo, Wherefore art thou Romeo,” in which she expresses astonished despair that she had fallen in love with a Montagu.
Her Potion Aria, in which she tries to work up the courage to take a drug that will allow her to feign death, was full of brilliant coloratura and high arching lyricism that expressed her mental turmoil, making that aria the showstopper it was meant to be.
Lydia Grindatto will sing the role on Saturday, with Lewek returning for Sunday’s performance.
Matching her for vocal luster and dramatic flair was the tenor Long Long, whose official biography notes in its first sentence that he is “not to be confused with the famed pianist Lang Lang.” As Roméo, his warm, full high notes could express love in the balcony scene, fury at the killer Tybalt or, upon his exile from Verona, despair.
In the balcony scene, he embodied the ardent suitor, his voice swelling on the words “l’amour” and he led up to an impassioned performance of the aria “Ah! lêve-toi soleil” and the moment when he sang the words “je t’adore” (“I adore you”). After the swordfight deaths when he is condemned to exile, he and the chorus and orchestra combined for a grim and stirring climax with a crash of cymbals to mark the drama’s dark turn. Eric Taylor will sing the role on Saturday, with Long Long returning for Sunday’s performance.
The action took place on traditional, darkly atmospheric sets from Utah Opera, with ornate two-story colonnades serving through the opera as the Capulet’s hall, an outdoor balcony, a street in Verona, and finally, a tomb.
Stage direction by Tara Faircloth was traditional and matched the sets and singing. If occasionally busy, with some distracting horseplay during arias, it was energetic and respectful of the story and music. If the sword fights seemed more stylized than realistic, they produced satisfying clanking and scraping that made a good match with the aggressive music in the orchestra. They were coordinated by Andrew Kenneth Moss, who holds the interesting title of “Fight & Intimacy Director.” His “intimacy” work was also successful, producing a bedroom scene that was almost cinematic in its realism, sensual and romantic without coming off as smutty or cliched.
Conductor David Stern, a company veteran, was given the new title of Ari Rifkin Music Director, a promotion that recognized his years of successful work with the company’s fine orchestra. The orchestra, which gave an energetic, headlong account of the work’s short prelude, provided glowing performances of the atmospheric music leading into segments such as the balcony scene and the scene in Juliette’s bedroom. It was sometimes hard to hear, unfortunately, due to the incessant talking of audience members who continued their conversations long into these orchestral passages.
Lavishly costumed in Renaissance robes and hats, the Palm Beach Opera’s chorus handled its important role well. The opera makes bigger demands on the chorus than most, and the singers, whether party guests or a dangerous street mob, delivered in climactic moments.
As Count Capulet, head of the family, the baritone Aleksey Bogdanov sang with patriarchal authority as he genially blundered through his daughter’s life, ruining everything, as operatic fathers tend to do (and will do again this season in Palm Beach Opera’s next production, La Traviata).
The role of Roméo’s page Stéphano is a trouser role, meaning a woman playing the role of a man. It was handled more than ably by the mezzo soprano Ashlyn Brown, who brought off the taunting aria “Que fais-tu, blanche tourterelle?” with intense vibrato, a lustrous tone and vivid phrasing, turning what can be a forgettable interlude into a highlight.
The tenor Randy Ho gave an effective performance as Juliette’s cousin Tybalt, his furious high notes expressing the loathing of the Capulet clan for the Montagus. The baritone Bernardo Medeiros sang the role of Roméo’s friend Mercutio, giving a lively account of his “Queen Mab” aria, in which he makes gentle fun of his friend’s anxieties.
The bass baritone Alfred Walker strode the stage in brown habit as Frère Laurent, his voice booming with the authority and power of his office in the wedding scene. As Juliette’s nurse Gertrude, Lauren Decker was fussily attentive, bustling around Juliette and holding her own against the Capulet clan.
Palm Beach Opera will repeat Roméo et Juliette 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach. pbopera.org
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Sat Jan 25, 2025
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