Devising theatre-opera fusion
Marginalia’s A rose by another name: Juliet & Romeo is a newly devised piece for two singers and one actor, irreverently combining Shakespeare’s timeless words with Bellini’s intoxicating melodies. Creator Chloë Allison explains what inspired her to fuse theatre and opera.
“There are provocative tensions between William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1597) and I Capuleti e i Montecchi (1830) by Vincenzo Bellini and librettist Felice Romani. Shakespeare's Romeo, although not entirely sinless, is more of a youthful dreamer, whereas he emerges as a war-mongering narcissist in Bellini's opera. The pressures that Romeo and the other men exert on Juliet are felt even more keenly in the opera, since she has no female companion. In the play, Fate plays an important role: we are made aware in the very first lines that the story about to unfold will be an unhappy one. In the opera, the principal characters’ tragic end is met not because it was predetermined. Neither is their doom wholly the result of familial and societal pressures: a hefty portion of the blame falls at Romeo’s feet and the net of ego-fuelled, emotional manipulation in which he ensnares Juliet. The toxic elements in Romeo’s passion for Juliet are not challenged in the opera and in the play, the pair’s love is presented predominantly as a noble force that can heal age-old rifts. In combining Shakespeare's words with Bellini's duets and arias, we had the freedom to mould a story that centred and interrogated Romeo’s problematic traits and questioned the role of love in causing their tragic end. This involved creating the character of Love and judiciously selecting words for her spoken by various characters in the play.
We started workshopping the piece with well-formed ideas about our Romeo and Juliet and how our couple compared with the characters in the play and the opera. By contrast, Love was a blank slate. We spent a lot of time considering her motivations: she emerged as a complex Puck-like figure with rapidly oscillating emotions and fickle loyalties. As an age-old being, she is easily bored and always eager to meddle in human affairs. Occasionally, the events unfolding before her eyes take her by surprise, but she is always keen to take credit for any successes. She certainly takes glee in manufacturing chaos, though it is occasionally tempered by a passing affection for Juliet. Perhaps she would feel for Romeo, too, were he not so thoroughly self-centred. In the past, she has been his ally in attempted amorous conquests and has received no thanks. This time, Romeo's feelings are more than just a crush: he is obsessed with Juliet. His feelings drive him to new depths of self-obsession, revealing an utter lack of empathy in him. Love has had enough: she watches the final moments of Romeo's life with a blackened heart.”
