Thanks to the advocacy of Leonard Slatkin and his team, Gounod’s romantic work, Romeo et Juliette, seems the epitome of the well-made French nineteenth-century opera, so RCA have stolen a march on EMI, whose much-heralded version with Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna will now have to fight hard to assert its ascendancy.
From the very start, Swenson confirms all the good things written about her recent Semele at Covent Garden and adds to them a true empathy for the shape and feeling of a Gounod phrase. At the start, in the famous Waltz Song, she announces her gifts. Besides singing this showpiece with technical confidence, a full, rounded tone and refined delicacy in coloratura, she shows an understanding of the girl’s youthful vivacity yet tempers that with inner feeling at the “Loin d’hiver” passage.
In the Madrigal, that touch of plangency essential in any Juliette comes to the fore – the voicing of “Si tu me veux pour femme” so gentle, so simple – and later she adds to it the fatalism that her love must be caught on the transient wing. The fear at having to enter the tomb of Tybalt in the solo at the end of Act 4, so often omitted in the opera house, is graphically expressed; as are the last, desperate utterances as she eagerly grasps the poignard to join her beloved in Elysium. Her French, though not perfect, is well learnt, quite adequate to support her impressive portrayal.
She seems to have inspired Domingo back to almost his best, youthful form: I haven’t heard him sing so spontaneously on stage or disc for a long time. Romeo’s famous aria is sung with growing ardour and warm resonance. As one would expect from a great Otello and Radames, the outburst against Tybalt when he has killed Mercutio is heroic to a fault. But the golden tenor is still able to soften in the duets in response to this Juliette: the argument as to whether it is the lark or the nightingale disturbing their night of bliss provides just one example of duetting of the highest class, which culminates in the dying ecstasy of “Viens! fuyons au bout du monde”. Only the strain once or twice on high betrays the advancing years.
Two principals of such calibre deserve and, by and large, receive worthy support. Susan Graham dispatches Stephano’s delightful if irrelevant Chanson with the elan one would expect from this ever-improving artist. Alain Vernhes brings authentic diction and a sonorous, van Dam-like manner to Capulet, Alastair Miles is a suitably grave Frere Laurent, and Kurt Ollmann proves a witty Mercutio, though his tone spreads uncomfortably once or twice. Sarah Walker’s Gertrude is as characterful as it is on stage at Covent Garden in the Pioneer video (10/95), which has Vaduva and Alagna as its appealing lovers.
All are brought together into a firm ensemble by Slatkin’s loving yet never lingering direction. He brings all the bitter-sweetness out of the Entr’actes by which Gounod obviously set so much store, cares for the composer’s refined orchestration and shapes the set pieces with an unerring ear for matching tempos. What more can you ask for? Well, a chorus and orchestra that respond with a like mind, and that’s what we have here. Most of the original 1873 score is in place, except for the first three movements of the Wedding tableau, often omitted. They are included in the more-or-less complete Plasson set, which in consequence runs to three discs. Their omission can easily be borne. To complete our pleasure the recording is well-nigh faultless. The voices are up front where they should be but never to the detriment of the orchestra.
The 1953 Decca set has its historic value, the Lombard sounds unidiomatic beside the new one though Freni’s and Corelli’s juicy, Italianate voices aren’t wholly out of place in a Verona setting. The Plasson set is by no means outclassed. Malfitano is almost as appealing a Juliette as Swenson. Kraus sometimes manages a finer line than Domingo (as at the start of “Nuit d’hymenee!”) though he sounds the older singer. The French support and more authentic version are also in its favour. But the recording is too resonant, sounds studio-bound (on the new RCA there’s a real sense of a theatrical experience) and fails to give the voices a proper presence. I would now vote for this new set while awaiting the new EMI with interest.'