Werther' on the psychotherapist's couch Music and Vison 23 marzo

A Masterly Performance Massenet's 'Werther' on the psychotherapist's couch, by GIUSEPPE PENNISI 'Boys do not cry', a long-standing proverb says. Yet, correctly, the musicologist Arhur Holberg writes that when in 1775 or thereabout, Goethe's novel The Sorrow of Young Werther was published, even though it was in rough Germany, on its way to forming an Empire, 'weeping in public became fashionable for men and the more elegant gentlemen around town began to sport blue frock coats, yellow waistcoats, and leather breeches in imitation of the lovelorn hero'. Chronicles of the time even added that young men carefully preserved their lachrymose effluences in crystal vials to prove that they had experienced fathomable melancholy. The novel took Europe by storm as it captured the spirit of the age: the end of Neo-Classicism and the jump start of Romanticism. You bet: opera houses could not but catch up with The Sorrow of Young Werther. At the time, copyright was rather feeble domestically and even weaker internationally. In 1802, an opera by Vincenzo Puccitta after Goethe's novel was staged in Venice, in Pisa another by Niccolò Benvenuti in 1811, in Rome a third one by Roberto Gentili in 1862, and in Valencia a fourth by Edouardo Ximenes in 1870. The list is grossly incomplete, and does not include the large number of Werther-inspired operas in the German language world. Yet they have all been forgotten, not even revived in one of those festivals that specialize in rediscovering rare operatic birds.
Francesco Meli as Werther and Sonia Ganassi as Charlotte in Act I of Massenet's 'Werther' at Teatro Regio di Parma. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci Only Jules Massenet's Werther is still rather frequently performed. In my opinion, it is one of the best operas by this Third French Republic composer. It had a difficult birth, requiring nearly a cooperative of librettists (Eduard Blau, Paul Millier and Geroges Hartmann) to develop a proper 'dramme lyrique'. Even though Massenet was first with this in his country, French officialdom did not like the plot or the music, and expected it to be a box office disaster. Thus, the whole thing had to be translated into German. After a triumph at its 1892 Vienna première, it was considered as the quintessential French dramme lyrique, albeit drawn from a quintessential German Romantic novel at a time when French culture was moulded in the vérisme of Balzac and Zola -- the exact opposite of Romanticism.
Sonia Ganassi as Charlotte in Act I of Massenet's 'Werther' at Teatro Regio di Parma. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci The plot is widely known. Werther, twenty three, is in love with Charlotte, twenty, and she has promised to her dying mother that she'll marry Albert (twenty four), the protagonist's best and closest friend. Even though the young Sophie (eighteen), Charlotte's sister, makes no mystery of her attraction to Werther, the young man falls into an ever-increasing depression, and finds only limited solace in his passion for nature. About a year after Charlotte's wedding, Werther finds his sorrow unbearable and, on Christmas night, borrows two guns from Albert (who is fully aware of what is going on) and shoots himself. Charlotte just has time to see him dying and to vow to him that he was and will be her only love. In short, very Romantic stuff in clear and open contrast the limitation of XVIII century rationalism, nearly voluptuous pleasure from one's own despair, wavering between dejection and exuberance. The score fully reflects this dissonance between joy and despair, especially in two echoing arias where the protagonist reflects on the relationship between man and nature.
Serena Gamberoni as Sophie in Act II of Massenet's 'Werther' at Teatro Regio di Parma. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci In Italy, Werther is one of the most frequent French titles on stage. In Spring 2007 there were as many as three very different productions (in Naples, Rome and by a company touring a number of provincial theatres).
Francesco Meli as Werther in Act II of Massenet's 'Werther' at Teatro Regio di Parma. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci This year the production started in provincial theatres, at nothing less than the Teatro Regio of Parma, one of the temples of Italian operatic culture -- right in the center of Verdi's birthplace and of his much loved Villa. It is a rather unusual production. Firstly, the plot is moved from the end of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century: the mood is not as Romantic as we are accustomed to (when we see, and listen to, Werther), there is a flair of Ibsen and Strindberg and one feels than Sigmund Freud is just around the corner. Of course, the stage direction (Marco Carniti) intends to show us a different Werther to the usual fare; the emphasis is not as much on the interaction of the young man with nature, but on his introspection -- and, obviously, on Charlotte's introspection. A scene from Act II of Massenet's 'Werther' at Teatro Regio di Parma. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci Secondly, the stage sets (Alessandro Chiti) have little to do with the pretty postcards of a Germany full of flowers in the spring or with nice flocks of snow at Christmas time. There is only one tree on stage and it is cut in Act II. The drama develops between two white walls closing into the protagonists; also the very orderly living room of Act I becomes sheer chaos in Acts III and IV with the view paralleling the growing mental chaos of Werther and Charlotte, whilst Albert is very coldly witnessing the growing disorder and Sophie just does not grasp what is going on. In short, Werther is on the psychotherapist's couch (and so is Charlotte), but the analyst cannot help. A cruel rather than a Romantic view of life. At the opening night, 22 April 2010, on which this review is based, not everyone in the audience appreciated this different Werther.
Sonia Ganassi as Charlotte and Claudio Caoduro as Albert in Act II of Massenet's 'Werther' at Teatro Regio di Parma. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci Opera, however, is also and mainly music. The musical direction was entrusted to Michel Plasson, a veteran and a specialist of this repertory. His conducting was careful and respectful of every single one of Massenet's notes -- especially appreciated were his interpretations of the symphonic interludes. Charlotte was Sonia Ganassi, another veteran of the role; in the last few years, she lost weight, which made her more credible in the part. She was applauded during and after the performance. Claudio Caoduro as Albert and Serena Gamberoni as Sophie were also good.
Sonia Ganassi as Charlotte in Act III of Massenet's 'Werther' at Teatro Regio di Parma. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci The spotlights and attention were on Francesco Meli who made his début as Werther. Meli is just thirty, but has become a rising star on the Italian (and European) music scenes, mainly for his singing of 'agility' tenor roles in operas by Donizetti and Rossini. He is now gradually becoming a tenor spinto. After Idomeneo in Bologna (and many other smaller cities) and Gabriele Adorno in Simon Boccanegra in Parma, he is taking up increasingly heavier, and thickier, roles with an emphasis on his central register, long (not only high) acute, complicated legato and plenty of fraseggio. Francesco Meli as Werther in Act IV of Massenet's 'Werther' at Teatro Regio di Parma. Photo © 2010 Roberto Ricci He was a perfect Werther (also due to his excellent French diction),
more similar to José Carreras (in the Colin Davis Philips recording of some thirty years ago) than to Alfred Kraus' well-known EMI version. He received real accolades and requests of encore after Pourquoi me réveiller, ô soufflé du printemps. In short, a masterly performance which underlines a lot of work and study. I doubt, however, that Meli will ever return to Rossini and Donizetti. Copyright © 27 April 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi, Rome, Italy << M&V home Concert reviews Der Freischütz >>