Star Crossed Lovers

Romeo and Juliet were the original star-crossed lovers; Shakespeare coined the phrase in his tragedy about their young love and tragic death. But the expression can be applied to doomed couples of all kinds: Faust and Marguerite, Othello and Desdemona, and of course Tony and Maria in West Side Story, which updates Romeo and Juliet to modern New York. This recording, taped at a gala concert in Chicago in 1998 and videotaped for a telecast on the PBS series Great Performances, presents music about doomed love composed by Leonard Bernstein, Charles Gounod, Franz Lehar, Duke Ellington, and others, including several Spanish songs that show Plácido Domingo in top form. After all the tragedy, there is a duet that signals one happy ending: the Merry Widow waltz. Domingo and Renée Fleming are two of today’s greatest singers, and they live up to their reputations. –Joe McLellan