Songs of tragic love will echo the 80th anniversary of LSU Opera starting Thursday. The 37 cast members of LSU Opera, accompanied by the LSU Symphony Orchestra, will perform “Roméo et Juliette” by Charles Gounod in the Claude L. Shaver Theatre starting tonight through Sunday. Gounod’s 19th century version of one of Shakespeare’s most beloved plays is performed in French.”This is the longest continuously active performing arts organization in the history of the state of Louisiana,” said Dugg McDonough, LSU Opera artistic director. LSU Opera began in the 1930s and has built a reputation of producing “outstanding performances” and “exceptional singers,” according to the LSU School of Music’s Web site. “There’s been quite a history of LSU students who have gone onto success in the professional world,” McDonough said. “What we try to do is train the singers so there’s a solid balance between their vocal and dramatic skills.”LSU Opera offers two main stage productions every year, and the cast performed Stephen Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music” in the fall. McDonough said he and Michael Borowitz, LSU Opera music director, choose operas based on music students’ knowledge of their craft.He said the organization chose “Roméo et Juliette” because it was written by the same composer as LSU Opera’s first performance. The Opera performed “Faust” by Gounod 80 years ago.”We all got lucky with being able to guide students through works we really care deeply about,” he said.While the opera will be sung in French, McDonough said there will be English supertitles above the stage for audience members.”It’s one of the greatest of the Shakespeare operas,” he said. “It’s what people expect in 19th century French opera in terms of beauty, music, exciting scenes and depth of character. But as an opera, it’s very much faithful to the original play by Shakespeare.”The orchestra sets the tone in each scene, and the stage setting is bare, with one backdrop and few decorations and props, throughout the production.McDonough said the bare stage is typical of a Shakespeare play. He said an empty stage puts the emphasis on the singers who must fill up the space with their voices.”As best we know from sketches and descriptions, the global stage of Shakespeare was basically a stage with no scene,” he said. “Our goal was to focus on our performers and to tell a story in a simple way in terms of having a Shakespearian aesthetic.”Kathryn Drake, musical arts doctoral student who plays the role of Juliette, said at 29 years old, she is still young in the opera world. Drake said her role is difficult because she has to memorize an entire repertoire in French and sing louder than the orchestra.Drake said participating in LSU Opera as a graduate and doctoral student has given her opportunities to sing impressive roles many young singers don’t land. She also performed as Violetta in “La Traviata.”Jin Hin Yap, musical arts doctoral student, said the role of Roméo has been his most challenging because of the emotional and physical demands of the role.Because of these demands, Drake and Yap will perform as Juliette and Roméo on Thursday and Saturday, and Maria Thomas and Zechariah Baker, vocal performance graduate students, will perform the roles on Friday and Sunday, McDonough said.  “We do that to help preserve voices and give more people the chance to perform great roles,” McDonough said. “But opera is an endurance test for the human voice. You can’t sing these characters four days in a row.”The roles of Mercutio, Stéphano and Gertrude are also double cast.Yap said mixing experience levels of music students provides a great opportunity for the undergraduate students to learn from the graduate and doctoral students.Khary Wilson, vocal performance graduate student, said in addition to singing, he’s learned to sword fight and die on stage as Tybalt.Wilson said seeing “the love story we all know and love” put to music is what should drive audiences to the theater.”We’ve had a tradition of putting on great operas,” Wilson said. “It’s been an unbelievable experience to keep that LSU Opera tradition alive.”LSU Opera will perform “Roméo et Juliette” in the Shaver Theatre at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and at 3 p.m. Sunday.—-Contact Mary Walker Baus at [email protected].