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At a recent rehearsal at the Metropolitan Opera, a cliché unfolded in the middle of a passionate duet. As a soprano nestled in a tenor’s arms, the room’s temperature seemed to rise a couple of degrees. While lovesick couples are hardly an unusual sight in opera, it’s less common for them to emit real heat. But these particular singers — Diana Damrau and Vittorio Grigolo, the stars of a new production of Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette” that opens at the Met on New Year’s Eve — have a chemistry that’s distinctly rare for opera. Rehearsal time is paltry, previews don’t exist, and there are generally just a handful of performances. Singers, who may not even speak each other’s language, are more or less thrown together and told to act like lovers. It’s no surprise that the act is often unconvincing.

But Ms. Damrau — who is married to the bass-baritone Nicolas Testé — and Mr. Grigolo, who appeared together for the first time just last year, have swiftly jumped near the front of the (admittedly paltry) ranks of opera’s truly combustible pairs.

As the pining, mutually destructive leads in Massenet’s “Manon” at the Met in 2015, pouring out their love at the Church of St.-Sulpice, their connection was scorching. Even in rehearsal, their duets are flushed and furious, their feverish kisses becoming plausible simulacrums of the ones you imagine dotting actual affairs. Ms. Damrau and Mr. Grigolo plainly revel in each other’s company, finishing numbers giggling in each other’s arms.

Read the entire feature via The New York Times

Photo: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times