The Madrigal affords Roméo his first extended stretch of singing. This performance also provided my first live listen to Vittorio Grigolo. He easily surpassed my low and tentative expectations, formed by an unwatchable “on-location” Rigoletto video starring Placido Domingo in his amazing/appalling Verdi baritone guise, a drivetime hearing of La Danza, and all-too-credible reports of an exhibitionistic vocal and platform-manner demeanor in recital. The voice has decent lyrico-spinto presence and his technique, while a bit patchy, is not altogether disorderly. Though asked to do some outlandish things (see above), he did not contribute outlandishness of his own, and his impersonation, aided by an appropriate physique du rôle, showed theatrical vitality. At least on this evening, his voice had an oddly hollow quality at times. I’d call it a lichee-nut structure, comprising an inner core, an outer shell, and somehow a space between. The high notes were secure, but only infrequently began to show the kind of free ring that can lift the great moments into orbit. In conformance with the contemporary tenor model of “relaxed” pharyngeal darkness, his low range is weak (“J’ai fait un rêve,” for example, which not only sets up the Queen Mab ballad, but can also tell us a great deal about Roméo’s state of mind at the outset, went for nothing), and he was obliged to forego the magic of a true mezza-voce by going into falsetto on the ascents to A-natural for “Rendez-le moi” in the Madrigal.

Without approaching anything like a Roméo et Juliette discography (the early years are full of instructive renditions of “Ah, je veux vivre,” “Ah, lève-toi soleil“, and even “Allons, jeune gens“—and don’t miss Bori and Gigli in “Ange adorable“), let me flag a few remnants of the opera’s past that might fill out our picture of its possibilities, especially with respect to Act 1. If you give a listen, as all devotees should, to the Met broadcast of 1947, you will hear the Roméo of Jussi Björling. It’s one of not more than a half-dozen recordings, ever, studio or live, of a romantic tenor in a complete role (a couple of the others are Björling’s, as well) that could be said to approach perfection. You’ll also hear the Juliette of Bidù Sayão—vocally lovely, personally endearing, stylistically finished—and later in the show the lush, craggy Frère Laurent of Nicola Moscona. You’ll even hear a Tybalt, Thomas Hayward, and a Gertrude, Claramae Turner, who will show you what I mean in regard to those parts. Unfortunately, you won’t hear the Mercutio of Martial Singher, who sang the role around this time, but will have to put up with the hacked-through Queen Mab of John Brownlee. It’s OK, because Singher included the Mab ballad on his studio album of French opera arias. His voice (a substantial baryton grave) was drying a bit at the top, but his voice’s overall quality and format, its owner’s expertise in rendering the linguistic and interpretive “vagaries,” the sensible tempo so flexibly employed for maximum expressive effect (Maurice Abravanel is the conductor) gives this wonderful piece its proper due. You can note, too, the above-mentioned single-verse dismissal of Capulet’s song. I wouldn’t have you miss the beautifully shaped Roméo of Charles Hackett on an earlier (1936) Met broadcast, which also has the Laurent of Léon Rothier, near the end but still showing the essential size and quality of an important French bass. And Giuseppe de Luca, no less, is the Mercutio. His French is pretty bad, and he certainly doesn’t understand the vagaries as does Singher, but we get a sense from him of what the casting of a major voice can do for this role.