Jules Massenet’s Werther is one of those masterpieces that was shunned at its premiere. Sketched out in the 1880s, the score was rejected by the director of the Opéra-Comique and had to make do with a first performance in German, far from Paris, before finally being heard in Paris in 1893. It gradually established itself as one of the composer’s most personal works, as fine a colorist as he was a master of the « leitmotiv »..
Massenet and his librettists adapted Goethe’s novel to give greater prominence to the character of Charlotte, placing the struggle between duty and desire at the heart of the story. The role of Werther, assigned to a tenor, was also sung by baritone Mattia Battistini, with the author’s agreement. Provided the artist knows how to use his palette of mixed voices, this version brings a melancholy color ideal for characterizing the hero’s suicidal temperament.
Tassis Christoyannis is exemplary in this approach, opposite Véronique Gens‘s moving, modest Charlotte and Hélène Carpentier‘s charming Sophie. Together, they give this text the prominent place it deserves in the French lyric tradition.
