May 18, 2012 at 8:00 p.m. — May 20, 2012 at 3:00 p.m.
Both at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts.

Tickets: $85/65

The season highlight and finale, Shakespeare’s greatest love story set to music by Charles Gounod, fully staged and sung with supertitles. This opera in five acts, by French librettists Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, will feature critically hailed American tenor Michael Wade Lee as "a rarity among operatic tenors, a really good-looking, virile, well-built and gifted thespian with a wide-ranging voice to match. Rising star Megan Hart will make her professional opera debut in the role of Juliet. Andrew Garland, Patrizia Conte, Rolando Sanz, Karin Mushegain, Max Pivik, Andrew Sauvageau, and 2011’s Figaro, Liam Moran, round out the stellar cast.

 

 

Synopsis

The libretto follows the story of Shakespeare's play.

Act 1

Overture prologue:

A short chorus sets the scene of the rival families in Verona.

A masked ball in the Capulets’ palace

Tybalt talks to Paris about Juliet, who appears with her father. Roméo, Mercutio, Benvolio and their friends enter, disguised, and Mercutio sings a ballad about Queen Mab, after which Juliet sings a joyful waltz song. The first meeting between Roméo and Juliet takes place, and they fall in love. But Tybalt re-appears and suspects that the hastily re-masked Roméo is his rival. While Tybalt wants immediate revenge, Capulet orders that the ball continue.

Adelina Patti and Mario in Act 2 (London, 1867)

Act 2

The Capulets' garden

After Roméo's page Stephano has helped his master gain access, he reveals the two young lovers exchanging their vows of love.

Act 3

Scene 1: Friar Laurence's cell

Roméo and Juliet, accompanied by Gertrude, go to the cell, and the wedding takes place. Laurence hopes that reconciliation between the houses of the Montagues and the Capulets may thus take place.

Scene 2: a street near Capulet's palace

Stephano sings to attract the occupants into the street. Gregorio and Stephano skirmish as men from each family appear. The duel is first between Tybalt and Mercutio, who falls dead, and then between Roméo, determined to avenge his comrade, and Tybalt. Tybalt is killed by Roméo, who is banished by the Duke.

Act 4

Juliet's room at dawn

Roméo and Juliet are together and, after a long duet, Roméo departs for exile. Juliet's father comes to remind her of Tybalt's dying wish for Juliet to marry Count Paris. The friar gives Juliet a draught which will cause her to sleep, so as to appear as if dead and, after being laid in the family tomb, it is planned that Roméo will awaken her and take her away. [A ballet scene in the grand hall of the palace was inserted at this point.]

Act 5

Juliet's tomb

Roméo breaks into the tomb after having taken poison because he believes that Juliet is dead. When she awakes from the friar’s potion, the lovers' last duet is heard before the poison takes effect on Roméo. As her bridegroom weakens Juliet stabs herself, to be united with her lover in death.

 


For more information, please call 410.267.8135. Season subscriptions go on sale June 1, 2011. Subscribe and save 15% off the season and receive a FREE ticket to the Vocal Competition Recital! (Value $30). Single tickets go on sale August 15, 2011 at the regular price.