Here from the iconic Verona arena is Charles Gounod’s masterpiece Roméo & Juliette, performed there for the first time since 1977. This new production was entrusted to Italian director Francesco Micheli, making his arena debut, who opted for a personal, highly original version: “An arena within the Arena, like a blood-red Elizabethan theatre. A senescent world that will not let its own children live.”

Juliette is sung by Georgian soprano Nino Machaidze, in a return to one of her early roles at the Salzburg Festival. Stefano Secco, often heard at the Opéra Bastille in Paris and other international venues, is Roméo. Artur Rucinski interprets Mercutio, Romeo’s friend and the rival of Jean-François Borras’s Tybalt. The page Stéphano is sung by soprano Ketevan Kemoklidze.

Cast:
- Nino Machaidze [Juliette]
- Ketevan Kemoklidze [Stephano]
- Cristina Melis [Gertrude]
- Stefano Secco [Roméo]
- Jean-François Borras [Tybalt]
- Paolo Antognetti [Benvolio]
- Artur Rucinski [Mercutio]
- Nicolo Ceriani [Paris]
- Giampiero Ruggeri [Gregorio]
- Manrico Signorini [Capulet]
- Giorgio Giuseppini [Frère Laurent]
- Deyan Vatchkov [Le Duc de Vérone]

Direction: Francesco Micheli
Set Design: Edoardo Sanchi
Costumes: Silvia Aymonino
Choreography: Nikos Lagousakos
Lighting: Paolo Mazzon

Filmed in High Definition at the Verona Arena, 08/2011