A Spectacular Show

On Saturday 21 January 2017, the Metropolitan Opera transmitted Charles Gounod's romantic opera Romeo and Juliet to cinemas in seventy countries. Director Bartlett Sher's production was seen in Salzburg in 2008, but it was new to the Met, which premiered it this past New Year's Eve. Sher moved the time of the action from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century so Michael Yeargan's intricate three-story set and Catherine Zuber's finely detailed costumes related to that era.

Sher's active stage direction involved a great deal of fighting which emphasized the humanity of the feuding families...