Massenet’s Werther
Metropolitan Opera
February 20, 2017
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| Goethe's romantic hero gets a Massenet make over Photo credit: Marty Sohl |
Werther is one of those operas
that I always want to like more than I eventually do. Based on Goethe’s slender
little epistolary novel that took the world by storm when it first appeared, Massenet’s
opera is just too laden with humdrum moments of musical fluff to really feel
like it’s worth my while. The composer takes ages to set the quotidian tone of
each scene and the big orchestral flourishes, which he primarily reserves for
Werther’s emotional outpourings, as too few and far between. The rest of the
story points are just not propped up in any satisfactory way.
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| The sorrows of the young poet Photo credit: Marty Sohl |
Seeing so many operas both in the mainstream repertory as well as
the occasional rarity, revival or outlier really leads one to an appreciation
of what makes an opera a canonical masterpiece. And, at least for me, it comes
down to dynamic, multi-layered dramatic tensions couple, of course, coupled
with tight, wonderful music (think Norma,
for example). In the case of Werther, it’s just not there. The main
drama here is that Werther loves Charlotte who is too stuck up to love him back
and as a result he kills himself. Everything else is mostly filler. The music
has a couple of terrific moments but otherwise it is rather unexciting. In
those moments when the orchestra rises to sweep the eponymous hero off his feet
into some sturm und drang, the tenor
does find a little fodder to feed his fire and ours.
What brought us back to revisit the opera this time was the opportunity
to see what the hit tenor Vittorio Grigolo would do with the role. And he
certainly made for an ardent lover. He played the archetypal tragic romantic
hero as an exuberant madman of sorts, the bright flame that burns itself out.
Fast.
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| An ardent lover on the prowl Photo credit: Marty Sohl |
The pleasure of watching Grigolo perform is partly the warmth of
his instrument that is often let to wander off the leash a little bit, which is
what lends him an air of the dangerous or the unpredictable. It is expressive
and so very Italian. And at the same time he often comes off as a bit of an
over-wrought caricature of a romantic hero, which is perhaps both a limitation
but also a part of his charm. On the one hand you cannot take him too
seriously, but on the other Grigolo is terribly endearing because he is, in his
over the top divo way, so in
character.
In any case, he threw himself into the role of the tormented
unrequited lover with a Neapolitan flair, devouring all of that male emoting
like a drama king. Grigolo’s gripping breakdown in Albert’s study was forcefully
gut wrenching. He brought an almost violent physicality to the scene that
really left everyone involved shaken, including the audience.
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| The fiery little tenor was all uncontainable passion Photo credit: Marty Sohl |
As per her usual, Isabel Leonard struck a handsome figure
on stage, though to my ear she lacked in volume singing Massenet’s French
score. I don’t always find that to be the case with her. Regardless, she emoted
beautifully, if regally, in her big moment in Act III. This is where the female
lead gets to have her moment in the moody spotlight of the opera. She also
carried the protracted death scene in Act IV with sentiment and conviction.
When she picks up the pistol and pauses after Werther definitively gives up the
ghost, you really are left wondering, just before the curtain drops, “Is she
going to do it?”
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| Charlotte is all composure and restraint Photo credit: Marty Sohl |
At our last outing with this opera back in 2014, when the
production debuted, Jonas Kaufmann sang Massenet’s tragic hero. Being one of
the few times he actually showed up to sing on a night that I had tickets to
see him, I recall being a little underwhelmed by his lack of volume and the
underwhelming power of his voice. Though dramatically as an actor he was
riveting, from all the videos I have seen of him in action I had expected his
voice to be more compelling. Instead it hardly projected from the stage.
In Kaufmann’s hands the young poet is ostensibly more disturbed
from the start. He wears his destiny on his person. It’s in his demeanor, the
look in his eye, the way he walks and it’s in the way Kaufmann sings, the
consummate solipsist, all closed up in himself. From the moment he steps onto
the stage you are aware of the fact that this probably is someone capable of
suicide. With Grigolo, who is more of a wild card, you really don’t know what
it would take for some so ardently passionate to commit such an extreme act of
aggression against his own person.
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| Indoor space rights the angles of the great outdoors Photo credit: Metropolitan Opera |
The sets of the “new” production are quite stunning. Rob Howell’s designs incorporate a
brilliant use of geometric architectural elements that either came into
alignment or separated and went slightly askew to allow the natural world to
break into the sphere of the civilized world. It nicely mirrors the eruption of
the uncontainable passion of full-blown German romanticism into the rational
order of enlightenment society. It is the Dionysian that encroaches on the
Apollonian. All of the scenes in nature are pleasantly catawampus whereas those
that play out indoors are dominated by the rationality of straight lines – all
the angles get righted.
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| The poet goes down in a redemptive blaze of storm and stress Photo credit: Ian Douglas |
And so the pieces of the set slide apart and come together from
one scene to the next until the space collapses into the claustrophobic
bohemian apartment of the tortured poet. In the final scene that’s where we end
up. As we magically zoom into his sad little room, the relatively simple stagecraft
effects are mesmerizing. Werther is like a caged animal, restless, unsure where
to turn, consumed by his own emotions. Here, momentarily, he is all storm and
stress. The way the whole thing is orchestrated visually is uttering ravishing
of all of the senses. Charlotte barges in on him once the shot has been fired.
As the children’s voices chime like tinny bells of redemption in through the
window singing their signature carol, in her embrace at last, he slowly expires.
Ultimate defeat has never seemed so redeeming.
–
Lui & Lei
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| The man who made suicide a "thing" Photo credit: Marty Sohl |
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