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Stale review: the 10/4/07 Romèo et Juliette from the Met. For those of you who are Romeo counting, this was with #2 of (so far) 4, Joseph Kaiser, who came after Alagna but before Giordani and Polenzani.

I almost lost it when Romèo failed to die in a timely manner and sang a brief ecstatic duet with the newly awakened Juliette before remembering, "Hélas, I thought you dead and I drank poison." Then they sing a little more and she stabs herself and they kind of die at the same time. Shakespeare it ain't. Though this one is not as bad as Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet, in which Hamlet lives and gets crowned king at the end.

Also, the libretto loosely translates the English into 19th century French, but the titles in the house translated them back into as much full Shakespeare as possible, disconcerting in such an un-Shakespearean musical idiom.

The Met's production of Charles Gounod's second most popular opera is set in a shiny pink Disney fairy-tale land where everyone is about 15, very unlike Jürgen Flimm's dark and somewhat adult production I saw in Vienna. This seemed to suit Gounod's music better. That's about it for me and Gounod.

But it had its moments, mostly musical ones, mostly courtesy of Juliette. I maintain that Anna Netrebko's voice is astonishing. Her technique is lacking for the repertoire she sings, but when she hits something big and dramatic the sound is just incredibly gorgeous-- and really big! She reads a little old for Juliette, vocally and dramatically, especially in this 'tween production, but no chirpy little coloratura could have stormed the usually-cut Potion Aria in Act IV like she did. It was absolutely spectacular, lack of a trill notwithstanding. Sign me up for her Butterfly now.

The debuting tenor, Joseph Kaiser, was very cute but I don't think he's quite ripe yet. He has a pretty and unstrained sound that carries well, but the high notes ranged from shaky to dire and didn't seem connected with the rest of his range. He had some great moments, but it didn't all fit together. He managed the 15-year-old thing well, and seems very casual onstage (the seemingly older Juliette was clearly the boss in this relationship, Kaiser is a pushover compared to Rolando Villazon*). He has excellent French (he is from Quebec, go figure, but still, good sung French is seriously unusual).

Of course there is the notorious flying bed. Not like in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, just flying in the stage way-- it floats above stage and Romeo and Juliette sing their wedding night duet on it with stars hanging around them. That's about it. It looks cool but is pretty self-explanatory.

The supporting cast ranged from unremarkable (Mercutio) to bad (Tybault). Placido Domingo's conducting could have been worse. It wasn't catastrophic, but the woodwinds and brass rarely came in quite on time. He knows how to give the singers the time they want, though, sometimes, when he remembers, and Gounod provides few real coordination challenges. He's conducting Tosca this year-- I shudder to think what could happen in the Te Deum, which is a tough one even for great conductors.

The production in general seemed to lack in stage direction, there was lots of questionable milling around from everyone except La Netrebka. It was also hampered by a large circular raked platform in the middle of the stage that was blue and painted with astrological symbols-- exactly like the set of a production of As You Like It I saw in Central Park two or three years ago. It had a center part that rotated somewhat pointlessly, and the production in general looks cheap and uninspired, obviously a remnant of Met 1.0.

All that, but the Potion Aria made it worth it. And Kaiser has a lot of promise, though he seems to have hit the big time before he really should have.

*Though this isn't in Gounod's simplistic opera, in the Shakespeare it's obvious that Juliette is in control of the relationship.