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A Magical Night at the Roman Theater of Orange
France has an unfair edge over other countries in the beauty and diversity of its architecture. It even boasts a Roman building that Italy itself cannot match: a complete Roman theater with a three-story stage wall intact and seats for about 8000 people. The wall is about 320 feet long and still sports the two tiers of stone brackets that held the huge poles supporting a spider web of ropes over which a giant tarp was unrolled. It covered the stage and the first rows of stone seats where VIPs sat.The semi-circular amphitheater is nestled into a hill in the center of Orange, and traffic usually rushes by the great wall--except on evenings when opera and concerts are performed in the theater and the surrounding streets are once again the domain of pedestrians. The theater had been turned into a mini-city of stacked houses during the middle ages. They were cleared out about 150 years ago, the stone seats were refurbished and the great stage, again dominated by a statue of Emperor Octavius, returned to its original function.
On a recent velvety summer night my wife Karen and I sat in privileged seats (2nd row, near the exits, thanks to her press card and my two crutches earned in an auto accident 6 months ago). The opera was Gounod's Romeo and Juliet, performed in Renaissance costumes by a giant cast - 100 piece orchestra and singers from three local choruses. The major soloists were Roberto Alagna - one of the world's top tenors - and Angela Gheorghiu, a Roumanian soprano of great talent and enchanting stage presence.
The set was bizarre but effective: the half ruined mausoleums of the Capulet and Montague families, plus some large tilted stones and broken columns that integrated magically with the ancient brick and marble stage wall behind. The great doors at the center of the stage wall served variously as palace doors and as background for the altar where Romeo and Juliet exchanged vows.
The balcony scene was played with Juliet standing on a tilted balcony in her family's mausoleum, transforming an often-parodied saccharine scene into fairy tale surrealism. In fact the whole production maintained that fairy tale sense - the chorus women draped in chador-like veils, fantastic masks worn in the ball of the opening scene, and the supporting cast (especially Juliet's father, the monk, and Mercutio) all of mythic size and dignity.
Gounod's score is not remarkable - only Juliet has a really memorable aria in Act I and I found most of the music romantically vague. (My appreciation of the orchestra's performance may have been marred by my position directly behind the harpist; sometimes it all sounded like a harp concerto�)
What was remarkable was the magic of the setting and the musical and physical chemistry between the doomed hero and heroine. They both sang beautifully and with touching intimacy (in fact the two are a couple in real life). At the beginning of the 4th act it was announced that Alagna had pulled a muscle but that he would continue the performance - which he did half supported by Gheorgiu and once carried offstage by other actors.
Practically the entire fourth act was played with Romeo seated and Juliet doing all the moving - and sometimes standing or sitting beside him, sometimes kneeling before him. It was all done with such affection and skill that it masked the clearly improvised stage direction. The fifth act is played mostly on their deathbed, so Alagna's handicap was hardly noticeable.
The audience loved it - all the more because of Alagna's toughing it out with Gheorgiu's obviously caring support. The rounds of applause were endless; because of my limited mobility we felt it prudent to leave early, and the applause was still ringing in our ears as we headed back slowly to our car. In all, a most enjoyable experience, mixing artistic grace and a sweet romance with a most impressive physical setting. It doesn't get much better than that.
Copyright � Paris New Media, LLC
