patrikpen: Werther's Dream World in Music and Vision 20 gennaio

sabato 28 febbraio 2015

Werther's Dream World in Music and Vision 20 gennaio

Werther's Dream World

Willy Decker's production of Massenet's opera
finally reaches Rome,
by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

Willy Decker's production of Massenet's Werther has finally reached Rome. I was at the Teatro dell'Opera on the 18 January 2015 opening night. Decker's work is quite important for two reasons: firstly, at its debut in Frankfurt more than a decade ago, it made Decker an internationally known operatic stage director; secondly, it gives a new and different slant to Massenet's drame lyrique, generally considered as a product of late romantic literatur oper. Werther is a well known opera and requires no presentation; I dealt with it here when it was staged in Parma a few years ago ('A Masterly Performance', 27 April 2010).

So let us look at the specifics of Decker's production. It shows that in 1893 (one hundred and twenty years after Goethe's epistolary novel which it's based on), Werther was not only one of Massenet's most significant pieces of work but also an anticipation of expressionism and symbolism, a bridge to Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. The stage set does not attempt to replicate late eighteenth century upper class Germany, but the action is placed in the late nineteenth century (when the opera was composed). The set is highly stylized. Colors and lights describe the moods of the protagonists as well as of the rather small-minded environment surrounding them: only Charlotte's younger sister Sophie and the children are exceptions to a rather grim society dressed in black. Werther stands out from all of them in his white redingote. He lives in a dreamy world. Indeed, he retreats into this dream world of poetry in his constant search for powerful emotions. Charlotte, in whom he sees an angel, virgin and mother, seems to embody everything he longs for. But she is not strong enough to fight against the restraints of day to day life, and her duty. Charlotte marries Albert, as her dead mother had wished. Charlotte keeps her feelings under tight control until Werther tries to break all boundaries and shows that he is on a road to suicide. Massenet's heart-breaking opera, and this Decker production, is not only about Werther. Unlike Goethe's novel, written in letter form, Charlotte, Albert and Sophie gain autonomy, vividness and depth of character. And while Goethe's Werther places the influence of poetry on life in the foreground, Massenet's lyrical drama is about the power of music: Werther and Charlotte, falling in love, dance to the rhythm of a waltz removed from reality. The spoken phrase, announcing Albert's return for example, are disturbing factors that interrupt this musically generated world of dreams.

At the age of seventy-five, Jesús López-Cobos gives a passionate reading of the impossible love between the two youngsters and the contrast with the petty society they live in. Francesco Meli has grown into a perfect protagonist. I heard his debut in the role in Parma in 2010 and reviewed as mentioned above. Now, he compares well with José Carreras in a famous Royal Opera House performance of the nineteen seventies conducted by Sir Colin Davis and recorded by Philips. Veronica Simeoni is a moving and engrossing Charlotte. Ekaterina Sadovnikova a sweet Sophie, Jean-Luc Ballestra a devious Albert. The opening night was a great success, with accolades for Meli.