Organization

Conductor

Michel Plasson

Stage director

Benoît Jacquot

Set designer

Charles Edwards

Costume designer

Christian Gasc

Lighting designer

Singer

Tenor

Jonas Kaufmann

Werther

Baritone

Ludovic Tézier

Albert

Bass

Alain Vernhes

The bailiff

Andreas Jäggi

Schmidt

Christian Tréguier

Johann

Mezzo-soprano

Sophie Koch

Charlotte

Soprano

Anne-Catherine Gillet

Sophie

Alexandre Duhamel

Bruhlmann

Olivia Doray

Kathchen

Philippe Jordan

André Diot

Opéra National de Paris

Others

Children chorus of the Opera national de Paris

Choir of Hauts-de-Seine

Maîtrise des Hauts-de-Seine

Orchestra

Paris Opera Orchestra

Paris

France

Opéra Bastille

Werther is an opera (drame lyrique) in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann. It is loosely based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which was based both on fact and on Goethe's own early life. Earlier examples of operas using the story were made by Kreutzer (1792) and Pucitta (1802).

Even though more than a century separates the publication of the novel from the creation of Massenet’s operatic drama, the composer remains faithful to Goethe’s truly personal literary model and captures the palpable signs of nascent romanticism – that Sturm und Drang whose turmoil would liberate all that was intimate.

In a discreet Clair de lune, the orchestra murmurs the silent empathy of two people holding each other by the arm for fear that their hands or their hearts might touch, until finally, in a febrile outburst of fervour, the tears of Charlotte, embodied by ElĪna Garanča, release the impassioned lyricism of inevitably doomed love.

Werther by Jules Massenet, from Paris Bastille Opéra, France, 2010. Directed by Benoît Jacquot and Louise Narboni, conductor Michel Plasson. Starring Jonas Kaufmann (Werther); Sophie Koch (Charlotte); Ludovic Tézier Albert; Alain Vernhes (Le Bailli); Andreas Jaggi (Jean Schmidt); Christian Tréguie (Johann); Anne-Catherine Gillet (Sophie); Maîtrise des Hauts-de-Seine/chœur d’enfants de l’Opéra nat..Performed in French.

In Massenet's masterpiece, based on Goethe's Sorrows of the Young Werther, tears never cease to flow from the very moment the moonlit set is revealed and closed. "My whole being cries at it" says Werther. We are a long way from opera's usual tears, be they furtive or violent. These tears flow slowly and inexorably, one by one. Patient tears as Charlotte puts it.

In the space of four acts, they will have done their work. Charlotte cannot hold the tears back as she rereads Werther's letters. They will flow in front of Sophie, the angel of consolation. They will flow when Werther reads Ossian. And finally they will flow at the sight of Werther's blood-soaked body. Yet Werther refuses these last tears: for now he is happy and free. Werther is a long requiem, lacrimosa dies illa, a tearful day if ever there was. A requiem for a young poet ending in paradisum. For Werther, of course, could only be a poet: that is to say, above the world, yet nevertheless enslaved to it. Death hovers above him, and Massenet marked his song with the sign, evoked by Rilke in his Sonnets to Orpheus, of those who are to die young.

© Opéra national de Paris

Goethe's emotionally turbulent early work in French: director Benoît Jacquot takes an intimate, small-scale approach to the work. It's all about the two stars in this staging: Jonas Kaufmann and Sophie Koch. The camera repeatedly picks out unusual behind-the-scenes perspectives, giving rise to a fascinating contrast between fiction and reality.

Werther by Massenet, De (2010/2010), Dirigit per Benoît Jacquot,, Director musical Michel Plasson, Philippe Jordan, Opéra Bastille, Paris, France

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