Forgotten no more, Bellini’s “Capuleti” shines anew with Teatro Nuovo

Mon Jul 22, 2024 at 12:34 pm
Alina Tamborini and Stephanie Doche starred in Teatro Nuovo’s performance of Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi Sunday in Montclair, New Jersey. Photo: Steven Pisano

Teatro Nuovo provided an immersive experience on all things Bellini and the tale of Romeo and Juliet on Sunday afternoon. Founded by bel canto specialist Will Crutchfield in 2018, Teatro Nuovo performs its annual offerings in Montclair, New Jersey and New York City. 

The main draw Sunday was Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi in Montclair State University’s Alexander Kasser Theater. With its fine acoustic, the intimate theater proved a particularly conducive space for Crutchfield’s brand of bel canto.

Bellini’s contemporaries Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli and Nicola Vaccai both composed operas based on the story of Romeo and Juliette. When Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi premiered in 1830, audiences were familiar with both Zingarelli and Vaccai’s settings of the tragic love story. A sampling of these composers’ efforts was given in a “Pre-opera Serenade,” which featured some of Teatro Nuovo’s resident and studio artists and pianist Timothy Cheung, who serves on its faculty.

Star singers in the nineteenth century frequently replaced Bellini’s tomb scene with that of Vaccai, which offered the advantage of “Ah, se tu dormi, svegliati,” a particularly beautiful aria for Romeo. Mezzo-soprano AddieRose Brown, a resident artist with the company, gave a moving account of the aria, notable for its poignancy and the loveliness of Brown’s velvety lower range. 

Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi is no longer a forgotten work. The first performance in the twentieth century came only in 1957 with Lorin Maazel leading the music forces in a RAI radio broadcast. Since then, the opera has been performed in major opera houses in Europe and America, although all but absent from New York’s stages and concert halls.

Teatro Nuovo’s focus is on the music. The performances are semi-staged in a rudimentary style. The one stab at visual interest, however, is very effective. Each scene unfolded against the backdrop of a projection based on Alessandro Sanquirico’s scenic designs for the 1830 La Scala premiere of I Capuleti e i Montecchi.

The performance began with Crutchfield, who served as Maestro al Cembalo for the performance, taking his place at an Astor & Sons fortepiano. He was followed by Primo Violino e Capo d’Orchestra Jakob Lehmann, who entered with a flourish. Lehmann would lead the performance standing in the center of the orchestra both playing and conducting with equal measures of charm and authority. 

From the first notes, the audience was transported into a sonic world far removed from that generally experienced in most opera houses. The period instruments’ sonorities were richer, darker and earthier. Trumpets and horns played thrilling calls portending of the strife between the feuding families. Piccolo and flute added to the excitement. This same musical time travel was replicated in the opening measures of the introduction to Act II, with the eloquent playing of cellist Hillary Metzger. Clarinetist Maryse Legault’s playing of Bellini’s melodies was unsurpassed.

Romeo and Juliet by Frank Bernard Dicksee, 1884.

At the core of Teatro Nuovo’s mission is its commitment to fostering young singers in bel canto style. Soprano Alina Tamborini, who sang the role of Giulietta, and tenor Robert Kleinertz, who performed Tebaldo, have appeared and impressed in prior Teatro Nuovo productions. Both artists were in prime form for this performance, especially Tamborini, who was remarkable as Giulietta, commanding the stage vocally and dramatically. 

Tamborini dazzled with the beauty of her voice and the sensitivity of her musicianship. Fioritura and trills tripped off her voice with graceful ease. Bellini’s long soaring lines crested on stunningly beautiful and truly exciting high notes. In “Oh quante volte, oh quante!” Giullietta’s recitative and romance from Act I, Tamborini gave voice to her frustrations over her impending marriage to Tebaldo and longing for Romeo with limpid lines aching with emotion. This was a breakthrough performance in every sense of the word for this exciting young artist.

Tebaldo is the chief protaganist in the opera as Romeo’s sworn enemy and Giullietta’s suitor. Kleinertz may not be the most subtle of actors at this early stage of his career, but he is a solid singer. The voice has beauty and power, both of which he unleashed with full force on Stephanie Doche’s Romeo in a blazing “Stolto! a un sol mio grido.”

Doche’s Romeo was cut from far finer cloth dramatically, but the mezzo-soprano is a rising star in opera houses across America with far more experience than anyone else on stage. She had a rough start to the performance with parched high notes and her fascinating lower range not quite in line with the rest of her voice. As the performance progressed, however, Doche revealed the full glory of her voice, plus her impressive technical prowess. Doche’s ornamentation in “Deh! tu, bell’anima,” the romanza in which Romeo sings of joining Giulietta in death was phenomenal. 

Resident artist Michael Letye-Vidal made for a vocally and physically imposing Capellio, Giulietta’s father and chief of the Montecchi clan. As Giulietta’s faithful servant, baritone Kyle Oliver sang with style and oozed empathy for the young lovers. The chorus, comprised of the male resident and studio artists, were required to do little more than stand and sing, which they did admirably. 

There was no need to brush up on your Shakespeare for I Capuleti e i Montecchi, as Bellini and his librettist, Felice Romani, worked from a play by Luigi Scevola written in 1818. Some of the romance of Shakespeare may be missing in Bellini’s opera, but the focus on individual passions compensates for that. Never more so than in the final moments of the opera, when Capellio enters to find both Giulietta and Romeo dead and demands to know who is responsible. Like a dagger to the heart, the chorus hurled “You, ruthless man!” at him, as the curtain fell.

I Capuleti e i Montecchi will be repeated 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center. teatronuovo.org


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