Opera Dives Deep

France's love-hate attitude toward Shakespeare can be traced back to Voltaire. With the coming of Romanticism, a frenzy of enthusiasm swept away the resistance and led to Hector Berlioz's 1839 Roméo et Juliette. The Second Empire brought new doubts about Shakespeare's “barbaric” qualities. This is the context for Gounod's 1867 Roméo et Juliette. Take a peek behind the scenes and hear from stage director Sidonie Garrett how the story of Romeo and...