opera notebook
some operas I have seen on videoJules Massenet, Werther (1892)
libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann
Opernhaus Zürich, 2018
- Conductor: Cornelius Meister
- Director: Tatjana Gürbaca
- Set Designer: Klaus Grünberg
- Werther: Juan Diego Flórez
- Charlotte: Anna Stéphany
- Albert: Audun Iversen
A strange forced-perspective interior contains all the action of Werther, giving a sense of the characters hemmed in by fate. It's weird but it works, as when Juan Diego Flórez as Werther and Anna Stéphany as Charlotte pull strings of what seems to be audio tape straight from the walls and enmesh themselves in them, or Charlotte starts trampling Christmas ornaments, or Werther gets stressed out by his confines and starts to pull up the floorboards. Flórez, though 45 years old at the time, conveys a strong sense of Werther's adolescence, both physically and vocally.