The popularity of this French opera in German-speaking countries is not only due to Goethe's model, but above all to Massenet's impressive music. After conducting his acclaimed Carmen , Lorenzo Viotti is back on the podium of the Carinthian Symphony Orchestra in the 2015/16 season. Werther is staged by French director Vincent Huguet, the title role is sung by German tenor Attilio Glaser. Anaïk Morel, a member of the ensemble at the Bavarian State Opera from 2008 to 2010, can be heard as Charlotte.
Werther was first performed in German at the Vienna State Opera in 1892 and soon became Massenet's most popular work. The passionate wooing of the title hero for Charlotte, who resists the declarations of love with reference to the loyalty owed to her fiancé Albert, is given ample space in four large duets and forms the core of the plot. The fact that Charlotte, in the course of this, brings herself to confess her love for Werther, contrary to her bourgeois ideal of marital fidelity, makes her the real heroine of the play.
