MET/ROMEO ET JULIETTE

Synopsis

In “Roméo et Juliette,” Gounod’s music expresses the emotional growth of Shakespeare’s young lovers: Juliet’s frothy waltz and Romeo’s swooning soliloquy early in the opera give over to the sensual, intense duets of Acts IV and V, which have a new maturity informed by their love story’s mortal stakes. It’s pure romance, the kind of music you want to hear delivered by lithe yet sumptuous voices like Nadine Sierra’s and Benjamin Bernheim’s. Nézet-Séguin conducts. OUSSAMA ZAHR