L'Opéra Comique © Photo: Citadelles&Mazenod - Sabine Hartl & Olaf-Daniel Meyer Werther: Opéra Comique
Paris, Opéra Comique — Salle Favart
About the Event
Werther is a young, idealistic, sensitive, and passionate artist. Upon arriving in Wetzlar, where he plans to settle down, he is dazzled by a scene of family happiness centered around Charlotte. Their love of poetry brings them together immediately. But Charlotte has promised her dying mother that she will marry Albert…
Massenet was the composer who did the most to make the Opéra‐Comique a major creative center. Paradoxically, his adaptation of Goethe's first novel was rejected by the director at the time, who preferred to offer his bourgeois audience happy love stories. The Viennese triumph of Werther quickly opened the doors of our institution to him, where it became one of the most performed titles.
Following his Lakmé in 2022, Raphaël Pichon continues his exploration of 19th‐century lyric drama. Ted Huffman reveals Massenet's incomparable sense of theater in a production that is close to the emotions, in which Pene Pati, Marianne Crebassa, and Julie Roset will move us deeply.
A lyrical drama in four acts and five scenes, with a libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet, and Georges Hartmann, inspired by Goethe's epistolary novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther. Premiered in Vienna on February 16, 1892, in a German translation by Max Kalbeck, and performed at the Opéra‐Comique on January 16, 1893. New production.
Cast / Production
Musical direction, Raphaël Pichon • Stage direction, Ted Huffman • With Pene Pati, Marianne Crebassa, John Chest, Julie Roset, Pierre‐Antoine Chaumien, Jean‐Christophe Lanièce, Christian Immler, soloists from the Maîtrise Populaire de l'Opéra‐Comique • Children's choir, Maîtrise Populaire de l'Opéra‐Comique • Orchestra, Pygmalion
Address
Opéra Comique, 1 Place Boieldieu, Paris, France — Google Maps
