OPERA REVIEW : Bellini’s Star-Cross’d Lovers Exhumed

It took “I Capuleti e i Montecchi” 160 years to reach the War Memorial Opera House.

San Francisco shouldn’t feel too bad, however, about its cultural tardiness. Bellini’s bel-canto account of the discord between the Capulets and the Montagues still hasn’t made it to the Met.

In 1985, the star-cross’d saga did find its way to the Chicago Lyric Opera--no pox on this house--and the Chicago production has now been brought to the civilized city on the bay. Luckily, it is a good production.

In order to appreciate the work in question, it is helpful to suspend specific memories of a certain play about a couple of precocious kids named Romeo and Juliet. This, emphatically, is a romantic-formula opera about a couple of mellifluous adults named Romeo and Giulietta.

Romeo, incidentally, is played by a woman.

Bellini and his hasty librettist, Felice Romani, took a lot of literary license when they derived their formula piece from hand-me-down Shakespeare. Despite the implications of the title, they devoted much attention to the Capulets and virtually none to any Montague other than Romeo. The greater battles, in any case, involve the warring Guelphs and Ghibellines.

Compression is the key here. There isn’t even time for a balcony scene, and the cast is drastically reduced. Forget Mercutio. Forget the Nurse. Forget the lusty street scenes of 13th-Century Verona.

Friar Laurence becomes Lorenzo, the Capulets’ kindly basso physician. Tybalt and Paris are fused in the tenoral person of Tebaldo. Lord Capulet, a.k.a. Capellio, becomes an all-purpose despot-villain.

The plot is, to say the least, naive. So is some of the music.

Bellini completed the opera in less than six weeks, recycling previous efforts for a few key sections. He cranked out rinky-dink choruses as if by the numbers. The orchestral writing tends to sound primitive at worst, generic at best. The secondary characters strike blank musical as well as dramatic postures.

And yet . . .

The best passages in “I Capuleti e i Montecchi” are glorious inspirations. Giulietta’s lamentations float with ethereal poise. Romeo’s ardor soars with exquisite heroism. The love duets thrive on daring melodic expansion that is always predicated on a graceful harmonic foundation.

Ultimately, only two basic elements are required to justify an exhumation of this opera: an exceptionally sweet and limpid soprano for Giulietta and a comparably fervent and flexible mezzo-soprano for Romeo. (At La Scala in 1966, Claudio Abbado recast this role for a tenor, Giacomo Aragall, destroying musical logic in quest of theatrical credibility.) The San Francisco Opera triumphed in its choice of protagonists.

As Giulietta, Cecilia Gasdia looked properly vulnerable on Saturday, exuded a pervasive purity of spirit and sang like a lyrical angel. Some aficionados may be momentarily disconcerted by her penchant for straight, white tone, not to mention a downcast demeanor that allows her to sing to the floor more often than to Romeo. Few, however, will resist the purity of her gentle, delicately shaded performance.

Delores Ziegler, remembered for a splendid Adalgisa in a dismal San Diego “Norma,” complemented Gasdia as a Romeo of perfectly gauged fervor, dignity and finesse. The two voices matched each other, moreover, tone for shimmering tone.

Philip Skinner, replacing Stephen Dupont, introduced an imposing, sonorous Lorenzo. Hong-Shen Li, originally from the People’s Republic of China, sang sturdily as Tebaldo so long as the bravura demands remained modest (it may be worth noting that Abbado chose a tenor named Pavarotti for this demanding assignment). Paul Plishka, who has undergone a drastic weight loss, looked more formidable than he sounded as Capellio.

Making his debut in the pit, Antonio Pappano conducted with gratifying taste and consideration for the singers, if without much passion.

The production--directed by Giulio Chazalettes, designed by Ulisse Santicchi and lighted by Joan Arhelger--turned out to be a model of modern stylization. The action was neatly motivated, the atmosphere aptly and economically delineated. The shiny black set--essentially an empty raked stage adorned with platforms, steps and an occasional symbol as needed--accommodated the narrative with poetic simplicity.

The singing had to be paramount here, and the enlightened theatrical team appreciated that fragile fact. For once, the staging really supported the music.