The dramatic intensity at the heart of Romeo and Juliet’s theme is such that not only can it travel in the Western culture from Shakespeare to Bernstein being reborn in each generation, but it also survives, almost intact, the heavy bel canto rhetoric.  Build upon Felice Romani’s inflamed verses up to a cliché, which at no point come from the Shakespearian referent (we only wish they did), I Capuleti e i Montecchi is still an imperfect Bellini that, although...

In a remake of the original setting of Götz Friedrich, Patrizia Ciofi and Teodor Ilincai are the loving couple Valery and Alfredo. Those two represent a young generation of opera singers on the edge to an international career. Patrizia Ciofi has already been successfully on the Berlin stage in the recent performance of Tancredi by Rossini  whereas Teodor Ilincai has jumped in to replace Vittorio Grigolo as Alfredo. Ciofi's Valery is very fragile, an emotional virgin. No...