Romeo and Juliet by Gounod, From (2020/2020), Directed by Arnaud Bernard, Conductor Vasily Valitov, Fabio Mastrangelo, Andrey Lebedev, Yuri Medianik, Novaya Opera Theatre, Moscow, Russia

One of Gounod's best operas, Romeo and Juliet (1867) was also one of the most successful incarnations of Shakespeare's tragedy. The main focus of the work is “drama through lyrics” (Mikhail Muginshtein): the family feud fades into the background and serves as the background of a love story. The monologues and four magnificent duets of the main characters become the basis of the dramaturgy: they reveal the whole history of their relationship. It was in Gounod's Romeo and Juliet, following his Faust, that a new direction in operatic art of the second half of the 19th century finally took shape - the lyric opera (drame lyrique) . In Russia, the opera was staged infrequently. The performance of the Bolshoi Theater (1941; renewal - 1945) became a milestone; in both cases, the best Russian Romeo Sergey Lemeshev shone in the title part.