Sometimes you just need a few great singers.
Two weeks ago at the Metropolitan Opera, a superb cast in “La Forza del Destino” outshone a new, somewhat confused staging by Mariusz Trelinski. And now, Bartlett Sher’s handsome yet unconvincing 2016 production of Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette” has returned to the house with a pair of singers in splendid form.
Sher’s staging situates the action on a raised platform surrounded by stone facades and colonnades. Each sharply etched scene from Shakespeare’s tragic romance — the ball, the balcony, the bedroom, the tomb — occurs more or less in a town square.
Beautifully lit by Jennifer Tipton and costumed by Catherine Zuber, the production runs out of ideas quickly. But that doesn’t really matter when you have singers on the order of Nadine Sierra and Benjamin Bernheim in the title roles. For an opera steeped in raptures and reveries, in which fantasies of romantic bliss compete with premonitions of a pessimistic outcome, Sierra and Bernheim were a dream at the revival’s second performance on Sunday.
Sierra was luscious, lovely and free throughout her range. Although her full, warm voice sounded a tad mature to portray a teenage girl, the disarming generosity of her sound conveyed a trusting, childlike quality. Reluctant and bashful in Act I, with a naturally youthful demeanor, Sierra started Juliette’s waltz with a coy, plain-spoken quality — a bold choice for the opera’s most famous set piece — and rendered the coloratura with a plump tone.
Her ripe timbre signaled that she probably would be better suited to the Act IV potion aria, and more than that, she was stupendous. Once again, she began the aria softly. Then it blossomed with Juliette’s fatalistic determination and came to multiple climaxes with a magnificent series of high notes that spun like liquid gold. Daring to glory in her sound, Sierra touched the operatic firmament. The applause went on and on.
Bernheim, every bit the poet-singer, put a succulent sound to elegant use, with transitions between vocal registers that had a buttery seamlessness. As a winsome lover, he rose to high notes of clarinet-like purity, and as Romeo matured into a tragic figure, he unleashed high notes of brawny, capacious power. Compared with his Met debut in Verdi’s “Rigoletto” last season, his “Roméo” was silkier and more dulcet.
In the supporting roles, Frederick Ballentine was an ingratiating Tybalt, with a fresh and effervescent timbre. Will Liverman, as Mercutio, lit up his scenes with a richly textured, mettlesome baritone. The mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey brought a cool, dramatic edge to Stéphano. Alfred Walker was a firm and lustrous Frère Laurent, and Eve Gigliotti, a merry Gertrude. The chorus’s prologue was luxuriant.
Pierre Vallet led Sunday’s performance, filling in for Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and handled it beautifully. Some imbalances threw off the opera’s delicate equilibrium, as in the brass-heavy finale. But elsewhere, big, round brasses and crackling strings distinguished the overture, and mahogany-toned cellos pulsated with romance. Fleeting moments of presentiment had a thick, slightly darkened cast.
The staging reaches the pinnacle of its laziness at the start of the final act. Juliette, having collapsed after drinking the potion that will make her appear lifeless, gets up and walks across the stage to lay herself down in the Capulets’ crypt. But then, as throughout the opera, something special happened when Sierra and Bernheim joined their voices.
Taking care with tonal blend is a common enough occurrence with a soprano and a mezzo, or a tenor and a baritone, but rarer with a soprano and a tenor. Bernheim’s reedier sound cradled Sierra’s opulent, slightly scaled-back tone, showing us that these young, inexperienced lovers shared a deep and intuitive bond — one that wouldn’t be hampered by the condescension of their families or the limits of Sher’s middling production.
Roméo et Juliette
Through March 30 at the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan; metopera.org.
