Things End Badly for a Poet, but Quite Well for
the Tenor
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI FEB. 19, 2014
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, Mr. Kaufmann was back at the
Met in the title role of Massenet’s “Werther” on the opening night of
Richard Eyre’s new production. It was 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, I usually
find Massenet musically thin and emotionally cloying. Still, “Werther” is
his most distinguished and psychologically astute opera, a touchstone of
the late-19th-century French repertory. Adapted from Goethe’s novel “The
Sorrows of Young Werther,” the opera tells of an aimless and melancholic
young courtier in 1780s Germany, a dabbler in poetry, fixated on his own
perceptions of life. He falls impulsively in love with the impressionable
young Charlotte, the oldest daughter of the widowed Bailiff, the steward of a large estate on the outskirts of Frankfurt.
In turning Goethe’s novel into an opera, Massenet instinctively held
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. Mr. Kaufmann is ideal in the role. He sings with
dark colorings, melting warmth, virile intensity and powerful top notes.
There is a trademark dusky covering to his sound that lends a veiled
quality to Mr. Kaufmann’s Werther and suits the psychology of the
character.
He could not have better support from the cast, especially the French
mezzo-soprano Sophie Koch, in her overdue Met debut, who brings a
plush, strong voice and aching vulnerability to Charlotte. The French
conductor Alain Altinoglu led a beautifully restrained account of the score,
drawing supple, deep-textured and nuanced playing from the Met
orchestra.
Mr. Eyre’s production, while essentially traditional, uses video
imaginatively and has a look that suggests the late 19th century, the era of
the work’s premiere. Opera fans who dislike concept-driven contemporary
stagings will find nothing objectionable here. And for me, that’s the
problem. This is one of those play-it-safe productions that split the
difference between faithfully depicting a period and injecting a few
contemporary elements.
Mr. Eyre, who made his Met debut in 2009 with a vividly theatrical
“Carmen,” has chosen to fill in the back story of “Werther.” His penchant
for explaining everything is a little at odds with the cloaked dramatic
character of the opera. 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 Mr. 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,
Sophie and Charlotte.
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, this 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.
Mr. Eyre uses Wendall K. 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 Charlotte and Werther, her escort
for the night, fall in love. Charlotte is already engaged to the eligible young
Albert, who, when the opera begins, has been away for six months.
Whatever my problems with elements of the staging, Mr. 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 Jonathan 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 Lisette Oropesa is a sunny,
winning Sophie, who, along with Charlotte, has become a mother figure
for their younger siblings. Yet this Sophie is no chirping innocent. She has
suffered loss and somehow intuits that Charlotte is not as settled on
marriage to Albert as she claims to be.
When Mr. Kaufmann’s Werther arrives to escort Charlotte to the ball,
he is enchanted by the bucolic garden and the domestic scene outside the Bailiff’s house. He sings an almost pantheistic invocation to nature. Mr.
Kaufmann delivers it with such delicacy and wonderment that this
Werther seems nearly detached from reality. During the charged duet with
Charlotte after they return from the ball, Mr. Kaufmann uncannily
conveys the mix of romantic yearning and self-absorption that defines this
character.
In this staging, when Albert arrives, he is wearing a military uniform,
which provides a plausible explanation for his six-month absence and fits
with the honorable nature of the character as played by the robust Serbian
bass David Bizic, in his Met debut.
During Act III, which takes place in Albert’s drawing room on
Christmas Eve, a good Charlotte can almost take over this opera, and Ms.
Koch came close. The distraught Charlotte, who has been rereading
Werther’s desperate love letters, tells Sophie in a wrenching aria (complete
with a forlorn saxophone in the orchestra) that keeping tears back can
destroy the heart. Ms. Koch, whose growing repertory includes Wagner
roles like Venus and Brangäne, sang with gleaming intensity while still
suggesting a fragile, confused young woman.
Werther shows up ready to kill himself if Charlotte will not leave
Albert and succumb to their love. Charlotte distracts him by pulling out a
volume of poems by Ossian that Werther had once translated. Mr.
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, Mr. 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, Mr. Eyre shows us
Mr. 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 Mr. Kaufmann’s acting, seeing the graphic suicide take place goes against the veiled nature of the opera. Once the
singing started, though, I didn’t think about anything else. During the
farewell duet with Charlotte, Mr. Kaufmann’s melting sadness and almost
crooned pianissimo phrases combined hauntingly with Ms. Koch’s
tremulous anguish.
Mr. Eyre and the production team were politely applauded by the
audience. The ovations for this superb cast, especially the great Mr.
Kaufmann, went on and on.
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