ROMÉO ET JULIETTE (Zingarelli) Versailles 2021 Franco Fagioli, Adèle Charvet, Krystian Adam
In this video
ROMÉO ET JULIETTE by Niccolo Antonio Zingarelli
Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles, France
April 2021
CAST
Franco Fagioli – Roméo
Adèle Charvet – Juliette
Krystian Adam – Evrard
Valentino Buzza – Théobald
Nicolò Balducci – Gilbert
Florie Valiquette – Mathilde
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Stefan Plewniak – Conductor
Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal
Chœur de l’Opéra Royal
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Gilles Rico – Stage Director
Roland Fontaine – Stage Designer
Christian Lacroix – Costume Designer
Bertrand Couderc – Lighting Designer
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Giulietta e Romeo is a dramma per musica by composer Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli with an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Maria Foppa after the 1530 novella of the same name by Luigi Da Porto and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The opera premiered at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan on 30 January 1796.
Giulietta e Romeo was composed by Zingarelli in only eight days and it is considered by many scholars to be his best work. The opera remained a part of the Italian repertory well into the nineteenth century and the role of Romeo was a favourite vehicle for Maria Malibran until c. 1830.
Napoleon’s enthusiasm for opera was extreme. This music-loving conqueror brought to him a young Italian star, the contralto Giuseppina Grassini, and the most dazzling castrato: Girolamo Crescentini, the only singer to ever move the Emperor to tears. Invited to France from 1806 to 1812, Crescentini made the glorious evenings of the Imperial Chapel at the Tuileries, in the company of Grassini, who was appointed First Cantress to his Majesty the Emperor – and his mistress. 143 concerts of Italian soloists at Court between 1810 and 1815 attest to Napoleon’s musical passion for Italian opera!
Grassini and Crescentini’s workhorse was Zingarelli’s opera Giulietta e Romeo, first performed at La Scala in 1796, and then performed many times in Paris before Napoleon by his two favourite singers. “They arouse heroism in me” said Napoleon. This duo of Empire stars comes back to life with Franco Fagioli and Adèle Charvet, for a selection of the great numbers of this totally forgotten opera by Zingarelli, even though it was a triumph throughout Europe for three decades, thanks to a sumptuous Bel Canto: this is Napoleon’s Opera!