Name: Werther
Start: 2017-04-02T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2017-04-02T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Opernhaus

Organization

Singer

Tenor

Juan Diego Flórez

Werther

Mezzo-soprano

Anna Stephany

Charlotte

Soprano

Mélissa Petit

Sophie

Baritone

Audun Iversen

Albert

Bass

Cheyne Davidson

The bailiff

Martin Zysset

Schmidt

Yuriy Tsiple

Johann

Stanislav Vorobyov

Bruhlmann

Stage director

Tatjana Gürbaca

Conductor

Cornelius Meister

Lighting designer

Klaus Grünberg

Costume designer

Silke Willrett

Set designer

Dramaturge

Claus Spahn

Chorus master

Ernst Raffelsberger

Opernhaus Zürich

Orchestra

Philharmonia Zürich

Others

Kinderchor der Oper Zürich

Chor der Oper Zürich

Zurich

Switzerland

Opernhaus

Forbidden love, wrongdoings and anguish: the Opernhaus Zürich ventures into late 19th-century French romanticism with “Werther“ by French composer Jules Massenet. A loose adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s epistolary novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, the opera is conducted by Germany’s Cornelius Meister. It tells the story of the impossible union of poet Werther to Charlotte, a woman of duty already promised to a wealthy businessman.

Goethe’s drama is echoed in Massenet’s score by emotionally wide-ranging vocal parts written on a grand scale. Juan Diego Flórez is undisputedly one of the best belcanto tenors of our times and embodies a tortured and nuanced Werther. “It’s not a profane appearance of any singer – it is an epiphany!” gushes the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in a rave review. At Flórez’s side, Franco-British mezzo-soprano Anna Stéphany sang her role début as Charlotte. The one-room staging by Tatjana Gürbaca cleverly makes the social stranglehold of oppression tangible. Should one come into the fold or escape?

Recorded live at the Opernhaus Zürich,
April 2017

Werther
'Drame lyrique' in four acts and five tableaux by Jules Massenet (1842 - 1912)
Libretto by Edouard Blau, Paul Millet and Georges Hartmann after Goethe
First performance in Viena, Hofoper, 16 February 1892

Werther Massenet

Public

Approved

Production booklet

Further reading