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Eloise Lally brings a mobster twist to English Touring Opera’s The Capulets & The Montagues

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English Touring Opera brings an especially Italian rendition of Romeo & Juliet with their new production of Vincenzo Bellini’s The Capulets & The Montagues. Here, the action takes place in a restaurant somewhere in a North American Little Italy. De Neroisms abound among the gun-toting male chorus, an Italian flag drapes the bar counter, these colours don’t run. Director Eloise Lally’s time shift is clever, through this mafia recontextualisation we immediately are on board with the type of hatred that sears between the warring Capuleti and Montecchi gangs. 

The Capuleti chorus, though small in their tour friendly size, are immensely good. Sonically rich, but also an enticing ensemble of characters. They chide each other with gesticulations, fix their greased hair, they’re especially excited to fuss over the preparations for Giulietta’s wedding to Capuleti grunt Tebaldo. Though genuinely gruff (props to fight director Kaitlin Howard), we feel at any moment they’ll exclaim ‘badda-bing!’ with a wink, and I’m not complaining. The orchestra, too, is in a tour friendly configuration, though one would never know it. Ripping through the flurries of Bellini’s bright score under the baton of Alphonse Cemin with brio, filling the gilded auditorium of the Hackney Empire. This is a production where the ensemble is greater than the sum of its parts.

Lily Arnold’s realist designs are polished and make the action all the more cinematic. The funeral procession for the supposedly dead Giulietta is a particularly striking image, so too is her glowing tomb — Peter Harrison’s lighting is excellent. In fact, the whole creative team have accomplished quite the feat in this mobster tale, adding grit to Bellini’s blockbuster score, which veers into heraldic pompousness a few too many times. There’s only so many cheerful Italian motifs one can take.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the production is what Arnold does with Giulietta. A girl deprived of agency, figuratively and literally wrenched between warring factions of men. She is a blossoming woman, her voice finding its place. Whether through impressive feats of virtuosic coloratura, or vulnerable whimpers, Jessica Cale delivers a fully realised heroine. In a welcome divergence from the original scenario, Giulietta becomes a cold-blooded goomah after Romeo’s death, donning a fur coat and pistol. Atta-girl.

Romeo on the other hand is a little more deviant than the Shakespearean source material. He’s more calculating as the ringleader of the Montecchi gang, plotting his violent means to snatch Giulietta from the clutches of his enemy, from her family. Though vocally impressive, Samantha Price’s characterisation as the hair-slicking, hormonal teen is initially ill-fitting and unconvincing, like his baggy zoot suit. 

Bellini’s Romeo is possessive, and far less swoon-worthy than one may expect: ‘give in to me’, ‘you don’t love me like I love you’, ‘you have no pity for me’ — the libretto reads a bit like the harassing messages of a red-pilled incel. However there is some joy to be derived from seeing the hot-headed Romeo deal with the fallout of his actions. This is where Price’s embodiment becomes fuller and realer, when that desperation mounts. Brenton Spiteri’s brown-nosing Tebaldo also comes alive under duress as he stands off with the young upstart before fixing himself a stiff drink.

Eloise Lally’s production is a bright feather in ETO’s cap. Her approach sheds formalities while steering clear of being another sterile modern reinterpretation — fuhgeddaboudit! The Capulets & The Montagues is an unstuffy affair with plenty of sprezzatura.