The librettists Jules Barbier and Michel Carré did not draw upon Shakespeare’s feted tragedy directly but its French adaptation by the poet Gérard de Nerval. ' Hence, the action also contains a few situations not found in Shakespeare’s play, for instance, Juliette’s aria “Ah! Je veux vivre”, which Gounod additionally composed upon the request of the French soprano Marie Miolan-Carvalho, the first to portray the role.

Owing to Bedřich Smetana, a great champion of Gounod’s music, Roméo et Juliette got to Prague merely two years after its world premiere, and its Czech staging at the New Town Theatre, with Smetana conducting, was the very first in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Performed in French.