Werther (Massenet)
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| Title: | Werther |
Poster of the French premiere in 1893 |
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| Original language: | French |
| Music: | Jules Massenet |
| Libretto : | Édouard Blau , Paul Milliet , Georges Hartmann |
| Premiere: | February 16, 1892 |
| Place of premiere: | Vienna Court Opera |
| Playing time: | approx. 2 ½ hours |
| Place and time of the action: | Wetzlar in 1780 |
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Werther is an opera ("Drame lyrique") in four acts and five pictures by Jules Massenet , which was premiered on February 16, 1892 in the German version by Max Kalbeck at the Vienna Court Opera . Édouard Blau , Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann wrote the libretto based on the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .
action
first act
July: A Christmas carol is played in the house of the bailiff ("Noël, Jésus vient de naître"). He tells his friends Schmidt and Johann, who are also present, about his eldest daughter, who assumed the role of mother for her younger siblings after the mother died. Werther is supposed to accompany her to the ball because her fiancé Albert is absent. Werther leaves the house happy with Charlotte , while shortly afterwards Albert returns and is received by Sophie (“Tout le monde est joyeux, le bonheur est dans l'air”). He leaves the house with the advice to come back the next day. Werther later accompanies Charlotte home (“Il faut nous séparer”) and confesses his love to her (“Rêve! Extase! Bonheur!”), But is interrupted by the bailiff. Werther learns that Charlotte has sworn to her mother to marry her fiancé Albert.
Second act
September: Charlotte and Albert are now married. Albert senses Werther's grief and tries to talk to him. There is another ball that Sophie wants to open with Werther. However, he only has eyes for Charlotte and cannot hide his jealousy. Charlotte finally advises him to stay away from her until Christmas. Werther struggles with himself and knows that he could never forget Charlotte. He is already thinking of death as a possible solution (“Lorsque l'enfant revient d'un voyage”). Finally, he flees like a madman before the celebrating company appears. Albert, Charlotte and Sophie watch him go. Albert now knows that Werther loves his wife.
Third act
December: Werther wrote a few letters to Charlotte in which he affirmed his love. She now admits that she also loves Werther. She tries to consolidate herself in prayer, but Werther finally steps in, who, desperate by her distance, sings a poem by Ossian (“Pourquoi me réveiller”) and throws himself at her feet. Charlotte flees and locks herself in. When she swears that she will never see Werther again, he only sees death as a way out. When he wrote to Albert asking him to hand over his pistols for a trip, Albert did not block himself: Charlotte sent Werther the weapons through a servant.
Fourth act
First picture. Christmas eve
Charlotte suspects Werther's suicidal intent and hurries through the snowy Wetzlar on Christmas night with the desperate intention of preventing him. A snow storm is coming.
Second picture. Werther's study
Charlotte finds Werther dying on the floor. He prevents her from getting help ("Qui parle?"). She confesses her love to him (“Et Werther moi je t'aime!”) And finally kisses him. Werther dies in her arms ("Non ... Charlotte ... je meurs"). In the distance you can hear the children singing Christmas carols.
layout
Instrumentation
The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:
- Woodwinds : two flutes (the second also piccolo ), two oboes (the second also English horn ), two clarinets , alto saxophone , two bassoons
- Brass : four horns , two cornets à piston , three trombones , tuba
- Timpani , drums : bass drum , triangle , tambourine
- harp
- Strings
- Incidental music on the scene: tam-tam , wind machine
- Stage music behind the scene: organ , glockenspiel
music
The musicologist Stefan Schmidl described the music of Werther in his Massenet biography from 2012 as follows:
"In Werther , Massenet reached suggestive mood values: the moonlit night of the first act ( Claire de lune ), the wine-blissful 'old German' September atmosphere at the beginning of the second act, Werther's wildly romantic Ossian recitation [...] and finally the final scenes of the drama, which as most concise winter presentations in music history can be described. [...] The quiet center of the opera, however, is Charlotte's tear aria ( Air de larmes ), which is almost in the form of a slow waltz . "
Well-known arias
Third act
- Charlotte's “Va! Laisse couler mes larmes "
- Werther's song Ossians "Pourquoi me réveiller":
Pourquoi me réveiller, ô souffle du printemps?
Sur mon front je sens tes caresses,
et pourtant bien proche est le temps des orages et des tristesses!
Pourquoi me réveiller, ô souffle du printemps?
Demain dans le vallon viendra le voyageur
se souvenant de ma gloire première.
Et ses yeux vainement chercheront ma splendeur.
Ils ne retrouveront plus que deuil et que misère!
Hélas! Pourquoi me réveiller, ô souffle du printemps!
Why do you wake me up, you breath of spring?
I feel your caress on my forehead
and the time of storm and mourning is near!
Why do you wake me up, you breath of spring?
Tomorrow a hiker will come into the valley
who saw me in my first beauty.
And his eyes will search in vain for me
and find nothing but sadness and misery!
Why do you wake me up, you breath of spring?
Work history
Emergence
Johann Wolfgang Goethe's work was booming in French opera in the second half of the 19th century: both Charles Gounod ( Faust , 1859) and Ambroise Thomas ( Mignon , 1866) show this. Massenet and his librettists decided on a further opera adaptation of a Goethe text. The aim was to follow up on the success of Massenet's opera Manon (1884) with the subject “The Sorrows of Young Werther” . Milliet and Blau began work on the textbook in 1880. However, compared to Goethe's original, the librettists redefined Charlotte's relationship with Werther: While Charlotte's relationship with Werther is only fraternal in literary publishers, her love for Werther is genuine in the opera, even though she admitted it only in the finale.
Most of the composition was written between spring 1885 and winter 1886/87. Most of Massenet's previous operas had premiered in Paris, but the director of the Opéra-Comique , Léon Carvalho , rejected Werther for the time being because of its gloomy content. After the fire at the Opéra-Comique on May 25, 1887, a performance was out of the question. Now the Vienna Court Opera stepped in and began negotiations with the composer. Initially, it was planned to perform the Werther opera in Vienna together with a ballet, and thus Massenet's Le Carillon came about . However, this idea was given up again. The Viennese music writer Max Kalbeck provided the German translation of the French libretto based on Goethe.
reception
On February 16, 1892, the world premiere of Werther in Max Kalbeck's German version took place at the Vienna Court Opera under the direction of the Court Opera Director Wilhelm Jahn . August Stoll directed. The two main roles were occupied by Ernest van Dyck (Werther) and Marie Renard (Charlotte). The very successful production saw 61 performances by 1906. Other famous actors of Werther were Alfred Piccaver , José Carreras , Alfredo Kraus and Neil Shicoff . The first performance in French was on December 27, 1892 in Geneva, and the following January 1893 Werther found its way into the Salle du Chatelet of the Paris Opéra-Comique. Today the opera is considered Massenet's most personal score and his greatest success.
variants
Some critics have interpreted the opera as actually a chamber music work. Consequently, there are therefore reduced versions, such as E.g. the production by Benjamin Prins at the Staatstheater Braunschweig , which only requires the four main characters and a single stage.
In addition to the tenor version, there is a baritone version that Massenet created at the request of the baritone Mattia Battistini. It was premiered 10 years after the tenor version and is played relatively rarely, for example in February / March 2009 in Paris. The French baritone Ludovic Tézier sang the title role alternately with Rolando Villazón (tenor). The baritone version was also released on DVD as a concert performance from 2004, based on a working score from 1902, with Thomas Hampson (baritone) as Werther and Susan Graham (mezzo-soprano) as Charlotte with the Orchester National du Capitole de Toulouse under the direction of Michel Plasson .
Web links
- Werther : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Libretto by Werther (Massenet) at Opera-Guide target page due to URL change currently not available
- Discography on Werther (Massenet) at Operadis
Individual evidence
- ^ Carl Dahlhaus : Werther. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater . Volume 3: Works. Henze - Massine. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-492-02413-0 , pp. 757-760.
- ↑ a b c d Stefan Schmidl: Jules Massenet. His life, his work, his time . Schott, Mainz 2012, ISBN 978-3-254-08310-4 .
- ↑ a b Braunschweig State Theater: Werther , program booklet, 2017
- ↑ Mike Ashman: Werther , Line Notes in the CD booklet for EMI Classics 3 09113 2, 2010