Things End Badly for a Poet, but Quite Well for the Tenor.
By courtesy of A. Tommasini.
Last February, the German tenor Jonas Kaufmann had a triumph at the Metropolitan Opera when he performed the title role of Wagner’s “Parsifal” in the company’s very bleak but theatrically riveting new production.
On Tuesday night, a year later, Kaufmann is back at the Met in the title role of Massenet’s “Werther” on the opening night of Richard Eyre’s new production.
It is another success for Mr. Kaufmann, currently the most in-demand, versatile and exciting tenor in opera.
Of course, “Werther” is no “Parsifal.”
Like many opera "fans", we usually find Massenet musically thin and emotionally cloying.
Still, “Werther” is Massenet's most distinguished and psychologically astute opera, a touchstone of the late-19th-century repertory, beloved by the Italians!
Adapted from Goethe’s novel “I dolori del giovane Werther” the melodramma tells of an aimless and melancholic courtier in 1780s Germany, a dabbler in poetry, fixated on his own perceptions of life.
Werther falls impulsively in love with the impressionable young Carlotta, the oldest daughter of the widowed Bailiff, the steward of a large estate on the outskirts of Frankfurt.
In turning Goethe’s novel into a "melodramma" (as the Italians call it), Massenet instinctively holds back, writing a lyrically alluring and harmonically rich, but refined, score that allows for emotional ambiguity and never indulges in bathos.
To be a great Werther, a tenor must somehow be charismatic yet detached, vocally impassioned yet ethereal.
Kaufmann is ideal in the role.
Kaufmann sings with dark colourings, melting warmth, virile intensity and powerful top notes.
There is a trade-mark dusky covering to his sound that lends a veiled quality to Kaufmann’s Werther and suits the psychology of the character.
Kaufmann could not have better support from the cast, especially the French mezzo-soprano Sofia Koch, in her overdue Met debut, who brings a plush, strong voice and aching vulnerability to Carlotta
Conductor A. Altinoglu leads a beautifully restrained account of the score, drawing supple, deep-textured and nuanced playing from the Met orchestra.
Eyre, who made his Met debut in 2009 with a vividly theatrical “Carmen,” chooses to fill in the back story of “Werther.”
Eyre's penchant for explaining everything is a little at odds with the cloaked dramatic character of the melodramma.
During the orchestral prelude, we see through a scrim the death of the Bailiff’s wife acted out in silence, or at least her death as Eyre imagines it.
It seems to be Christmastime, and the Bailiff is leading his children in singing.
Then, a woman among them, clearly their mother, clutches her chest and collapses to the floor.
Soon, we see a coffin being carried to a shady burial area on the grounds, trailed by the Bailiff and his children: six young ones and the two older sisters, Sofia and Carlotta.
Though it is not terribly objectionable to tell the story so literally, it is not necessary and, on balance, less effective.
Without this made-up silent scenario, Massenet’s opera usually begins with the Bailiff rehearsing his inattentive children in Christmas carols, even though it is the middle of July.
The back story of the mother’s death is revealed subtly through dialogue among the characters.
With sets and costumes by Rob Howell, Eyre's production intriguingly blurs the boundaries between nature and home life, between indoors and outdoors.
A series of receding rectangular arches frame the area, suggesting the walls and roof of the Bailiff’s house.
But the arches are askew to indicate that things for this family are not quite right.
As a theatrical design motif, a row of askew arches is becoming a little trite.
Eyre uses Wendall Harrington’s videos inventively to depict trees swaying in the breeze, the passage of seasons and, during one bold sequence, a flashback to the ball where Carlotta and Werther, her escort for the night, fall in love.
Carlotta is already engaged to the eligible Alberto, who, when the melodramma begins, has been away for six months.
Whatever my problems with elements of the staging, Eyre deserves unreserved credit for the detailed and involving performances he draws from his cast.
During the opening scene, with just a few phrases and gestures, the husky-voiced baritone J. Summers conveys the decency of the Bailiff, who, after instructing his youngest children in their carol singing, is enticed by two drinking buddies to join them at a tavern.
The bright-voiced, impressive soprano L. Oropesa is a sunny, winning Sofia, who, along with Carlotta, has become a mother figure for their younger siblings.
Yet this Sofia is no chirping innocent.
Sofia has suffered loss and somehow intuits that Carlotta is not as settled on marriage to Alberto as she claims to be.
When Kaufmann’s Werther arrives to escort Carlotta to the ball, he is enchanted by the bucolic garden and the domestic scene outside the Bailiff’s house.
Werther sings an almost pantheistic invocation to nature.
Kaufmann delivers it with such delicacy and wonderment that this Werther seems nearly detached from reality.
During the charged duet with Carlotta after they return from the ball, Kaufmann uncannily conveys the mix of romantic yearning and self-absorption that defines this character.
In this staging, when Alberto arrives, he is wearing a military uniform, which provides a plausible explanation for his six-month absence and fits with the honourable nature of the character as played by the robust bass D. Bizic, in his Met debut.
During Act III, which takes place in Alberto’s drawing room on Christmas Eve, a good Carlotta can almost take over this opera, and Koch came close.
The distraught Carlotta, who has been rereading Werther’s desperate love letters, tells Sofia in a wrenching aria (complete with a forlorn saxophone in the orchestra) that keeping tears back can destroy the heart.
Koch, whose growing repertory includes Wagner roles like Venere and Brangäne, sings with gleaming intensity while still suggesting a fragile, confused woman.
Werther shows up ready to kill himself if Carlotta will not leave Alberto and succumb to their love.
Carlotta distracts him by pulling out a volume of poems by Ossian that Werther had once translated.
Kaufmann holds nothing back in his fervent performance of Werther’s “Lied d’Ossian,” one of the high points of this score.
The last act takes place in Werther’s study, rendered as a cramped room almost hovering in the middle of the darkened stage.
Again, Eyre decides to make the story explicit.
In the libretto, when the scene begins, Werther has already shot himself.
We see him mortally wounded.
Here, during the orchestra tableau that precedes this scene, Eyre shows us Kaufmann’s brooding, depressed Werther pointing a gun at his head but losing his will.
Then, in an impulsive act, he shoots himself through the chest.
Blood splatters on the back wall, a "Martin Scorsese" effect.
For all the intensity of Kaufmann’s acting, seeing the graphic suicide take place goes against the veiled nature of the melodramma.
Once the singing started, though, we don’t think about anything else.
During the farewell duet with Carlotta, Kaufmann’s melting sadness and almost crooned pianissimo phrases combined hauntingly with Koch’s tremulous anguish.
Eyre and the production team are politely applauded by the audience.
The ovations for this superb cast, especially the great Kaufmann, went on and on.
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