An attempt at brokering peace between warring factions is made in a tense call from a phonebox to a bar where men crowd around the beige receiver. The look: double-breasted suits and Brylcreem for one gang, brown leather and rollnecks for the other. Fedoras for all. As the curtain falls on act one, a man lights a Molotov cocktail and raises his arm to lob it into enemy property. Poison comes in mini liqueur bottles. The heroine has a serving hatch, not a balcony. Forget Verona.
Even without directorial input, Bellini’s Romeo and Juliet opera has long been a red rag to purists, riffing as it does on Shakespeare’s play via multiple Italian sources. Produced in six weeks to plug a gap in the roster at Venice’s La Fenice after another composer failed to deliver, this opera-against-the-odds has never matched the popularity of Bellini’s La Sonnambula or Norma.
