The French romantic association of Shakespeare with the collapse of classical tradition and the freedom to experiment with multiple genres within a single work reaches its apogee, perhaps, with Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet. He called it a “dramatic symphony”, though it resists classification.
Orchestral movements rub shoulders with songs, motets and choruses both large and small. The finale, in which Friar Laurence reconciles the feuding Montagues and Capulets, is pure grand opera.
Its very complexity can make it seem bewildering in performance, though John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique offered a superbly cogent interpretation that emphasised the work’s tragic elements, albeit occasionally at the expense of its passion. Gardiner restored passages dropped from Berlioz’s final version: the choral narration of the lovers’ deaths; the setting of the Requiem Aeternam in Juliet’s funeral march. The ORR’s lean sound conferred a sinister edge to the Queen Mab scherzo, and their sinewy, detailed playing spoke volumes in the opening brawl, taken at almost terrifying speed. The love scene, in contrast, was cool, poised, and a bit too reined-in for my taste.
It was beautifully sung, with the Monteverdi Choir forming the detached semi-chorus – the work’s effective narrators – and the National Youth Choir of Scotland thrillingly intense as the feuding families. Laurent Naouri’s dramatic command as Friar Laurence made up for the occasional moment of waywardness near the start of his scene. Julie Boulianne was the svelte mezzo, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt the elegant, witty tenor.
