I love opera, and while Romeo and Juliet is not my favourite of Shakespeare's plays it is touching. Gounod's opera is wonderful, touching as it should be with sublime music, my favourite being colouratura soprano favourite Juliette's Waltz Song.
This Met production is good, but not great. It is a visually sumptuous affair, particularly in the first act, with beautiful costumes and sets(particularly the tilter turntable set, very unique and well-incorporated), and the whole production looks fantastic in high definition.
Musically, as you would expect from the Met, Romeo Et Juliette is also great. The orchestra play with a lush sound, and Placido Domingo's conducting is wonderfully understated. There is one disappointment though which was when the orchestra lagged behind quite severely in Capulet's solo.
Staging is mostly good, particularly in the Waltz Song, the Party and the final scene. The bed scene is very risqué and captures the wonderful chemistry between Netrebko and Alagna very well, but perhaps in regard to the story itself and the music with all the writhing about, flashes of Netrebko's legs and stroking the scene was a little TOO intimate. Also Romeo and Juliette's wedding scene, with the moon background, it did look as though Netrebko and Alagna were space-walking.
The singing is fine. Roberto Alagna is wonderful in one of his signature roles, and while her voice is darker and thicker than what I would prefer for the role, Anna Netrebko still has many moments where she shows creamy and expressive singing and she really comes into her own in her poison-taking scene. Of the support cast, which were generally solid, Nathan Gunn as Mercutio and Robert Lloyd as Frere Laurent fare best.
All in all, good but could've been better. 7/10 Bethany Cox