Romeo and Juliet and Civilization

Promotional image of Romeo and Juliet by the Washington National Opera, Kennedy Center, 2023.

“Every generation, civilization is invaded by barbarians — we call them ‘children,’” Hannah Arendt famously noted.

Romeo and Juliet’s famous and fatal romance reveals the dangers presented by parents who themselves lack civilization and consequently fail to civilize their progeny.

I should say here that this piece will touch little on Shakespeare’s work; it rather concerns 19th-century French opera — namely, Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, which Washington National Opera (WNO) put on this fall.

The opera began with the hurried, agitating, anxiety-inducing overture. Here, and throughout the evening, WNO’s orchestra played spectacularly. One wouldn’t describe its performance as flashy or pyrotechnical, yet the ensemble unassumingly accentuated every detail, every dynamic, every intricacy of Gounod’s genius score. Conductor Evan Rogister deserves maximal plaudits.

As the overture sounded, the stage remained shadowed. The curtain rose on Capulet partygoers, and the dim lighting gave their brightly colored attire a haunting, garish, almost gothic appearance. This opening visual was perhaps the most inspired directorial moment of the production. Its low light highlighted the stark dichotomy Houses Montague and Capulet chose to live with: an easy coexistence of vivacious life and senseless, hatred-fueled death.

Indeed, Montagues and Capulets took both life and death quite lightly. The opera shows them partying, fighting, loving, and dying — and not much else. The opera’s young men — Romeo, Mercutio, and Tybalt — initiate the violence that culminates with the protagonists’ deaths, but the parental generation actively encouraged their deep-seated resentments. The old folks’ maintenance of inter-house hatreds promoted and validated aggression among the younglings.

In short, the Montagues and Capulets failed to civilize their barbarians.

The civilizing process consists of habituating children to behaviors that diverge from human nature. In Genesis, the genesis (if you will) of Western Civilization’s moral code, God creates Adam in “our” image. One Jewish teaching says God spoke here to the animals. Adam’s nature contained godliness — humanity’s nobler impulses — as well as baser, biologically driven instincts. Whether taken literally or seriously, this biblical tract describes accurately the crooked timber of humanity, the material from which the carpenter Civilization must carve respectable, functioning, and sociable adults.

Through social and political norms, families, religion, and law, civilization guides people towards their “higher selves,” to borrow a parental platitude from my youth. To be civilized, the individual must learn to forgo theft and unjustified violence, to act with honesty, moral decency, and good manners. He must learn discipline and the capacity for self-denial and service to others. He must set aside the wolf-skins — or, for Gen-Zers, the pajamas — and don respectable attire.

Put on the damn suit, hippie!

A sine qua non of civilization is peaceful dispute resolution. Simply put, stabbing people whom your tribe hates is a distinctly uncivilized act. It’s societally unsustainable, as evidenced by the late-stage Roman Republic, the European wars of religion, and countless other historical episodes. However, the Montagues and Capulets failed utterly to dissuade their children from stabbing — a fact made starker in the opera than in the play. Unlike Shakespeare’s, Gounod’s curtain descends without a reconciliation between those two households, both alike in ignominy.

An aside for the opera fans: Pay attention to Adam Smith, WNO’s Romeo. He was the most audible of all the singers, with superb legato lines and that metal in his voice that sets opera singers apart from other vocalists. He exuded that uncontainable youthful male enthusiasm that’s instantly recognizable to those who have felt it — and probably to many women who’ve had to mother it. The trait that makes boys and men jump off ladders four rungs from the ground (as Smith did on stage). “This is why men pay more for car insurance,” as my mother likes to say.

Smith seemed to be having fun on stage — a gift, particularly among opera singers, a dramatically challenged group. Rosa Feola, the soprano singing Juliet, was at her best when with Smith. The two had a youthful chemistry — and enthusiasm for each other — that radiated from the stage to the seats. This made the Montagues and Capulets’ disregard for life even more tragic.

To the titular lovers, their starry-eyed and star-crossed romance had little to do with anything besides hormonally inflamed love. I’m unsure whether WNO’s production team saw much more. WNO’s show hinted— likely unintentionally — at the above themes, but no more. The show was well-sung and adequately directed, and the set and costumes were serviceable.

What about it raised civilization-level questions?

The nonrational answer lies in the transcendence of Gounod’s genius. Sitting through a near-three-hour performance gives one ample chance to think, and one’s thinking becomes elevated by the ineffable greatness of great music.

As I noted in my analysis of Giacomo Puccini’s La Boheme, 19th-century Romantic artists misunderstood much about life. They did not, however, misunderstand great art’s power to elevate — nay, civilize — humanity. And as I also argued of La Boheme, great art often tells timeless, profound truths about human nature irrespective of whether the artist — or subsequent generations of actors — understands them.

Gounod’s music demands that the listener think harder about what actually is occurring in this otherwise clichéd story. His score masterfully mixes dynamics and textures, drama and pathos, joy and sorrow. Sometimes complex, and sometimes simple, it weaves itself together like a tapestry.

Elevated by Gounod and Smith and Feola, WNO’s production raised, but did not answer, some of the deepest and longest-abiding questions regarding the nature of man. But it provided its audience a thoroughly enjoyable musical experience and an opportunity to think — and that’s far more than sufficient.