Juliet drinks a pseudo-poison, Romeo drinks actual poison… they should have put both down and had this Juliet and Romeo Cocktail instead. “Ange adorable” (Adorable Angel), ”O nuit divine”, “Nuit d’hyménée!”, and Act V’s “Final Death Duet” No Poison here, just a delicious drink! These four duets create the over arching structure of the opera. Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette is, in effect a series of four love duets. Here is also a great article by David Ward that weaves opera history and Shakespeare’s influence together. Here are the top ten Shakespeare operas according to the San Francisco Times. Shakespeare’s most famous tragic love story Romeo and Juliet has been set multiple times including by Bellini, Berlioz, Gounod, Tchaikovski, and Bernstein. Verdi for instance set the Bard’s plays to operas 3 times, Macbeth, Othello, and Falstaff (Based on the play The Merry Wives of Windsor). It’s really not hard to believe that one of the world’s greatest playwrights is often the influencer of so many operas. Here is an article from San Francisco Classical Voice that is great place to learn more of Gounod’s life. Gounod once said, “Melody alone counts in music… Melody, always melody, that is the sole, the unique secret of our art.” This shift would influence the next generation of French composers including Fauré, Debussy, and Massenet. Gounod replaced the pomp and excesses of French Grand Opera to a style that is more poetic and intimate. It was during this period that he met Felix Mendelssohn, whose influenced him to study the music of Bach. He eventually went on to study at the Conservatory of Paris and there he won the the Prix de Rome, which allowed him to travel to Italy, Austria and Prussia to continue his studies. Gounod was born into an artistic family, his first music lessons came from his mother who was a pianist. He was deeply religious and for a time debated becoming a priest, before ultimately dedicating his life to music. In addition to opera, he wrote a large of amount of church music, including his “Ave Maria”, which is a slight variation of a Bach piece. Charles Gounod wrote 12 operas, his most popular being Faust and Roméo et Juliette.
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