‘Werther’ ravishes at the Royal Opera 

A quarter of a millennium ago, the 24-year old Goethe wrote his epistolary novel The Sorrows of the Young Werther. Quickly translated, it soon became one of the first international bestsellers. Via a series of letters to a friend of the protagonist, Goethe re-lives his own sufferings from unrequited love. His beloved, Charlotte Buff, was already betrothed to a friend of his, but unlike Werther, the young Goethe certainly didn’t even attempt suicide. His literary creation had a huge effect on forlorn young lovers of the time all over Europe. Many adopted Werther’s costume and some actually killed themselves.

This was the late 18th century, when the cult of aristocratic reason was giving way to a more sensitive and sentimental milieu. Goethe’s novel can be seen as a cautionary tale: one should not simply abandon oneself to feelings. He hints that the only way out of the love triangle he has created (Werther, Charlotte, Albert) is for one of them to die. Werther leaves on a diplomatic mission elsewhere in Germany (the country was a collection of principalities at the time), but when he returns he cannot cope with the marriage of Charlotte and Albert.

The tragic denouement was based on the experience of a mutual friend of Goethe and a man named Kestner (on whom Albert is based). One night in 1772 this man asked to borrow Kestner’s pistols for a nocturnal journey. He took them back to his apartment and blew his brains out. Apparently the young man had been cold-shouldered by the local high society. Suicide was a mortal sin and at the end of his novel about Werther, Goethe notes that “no priest attended him”. In the opera, written a century later, Massenet is more sympathetic. After Werther’s half-bungled suicide, it ends with children’s singing (the same way it started), which the protagonist takes as an angelic song of deliverance.

This is the fourth revival of the Royal Opera’s 2004 production by Benoit Jacquot, which has undergone slight changes over the years. Once again it was conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano, who produced excellent playing from the orchestra in a hugely lyrical rendering of the score. Along with the ravishing music, Aigul Akhmetshina delivered a gloriously sung Charlotte, though the famous tenor Jonas Kaufmann in the title role was disappointingly off form. His presence felt rather wimpish — though this may have been the fault of revival director Geneviève Dufour — but his voice also lacked power. Act III was better but in Act II the orchestra was in danger of drowning him out.

The performance got off to a slightly weak start with Alastair Miles as the Bailli, but when Canadian bass-baritone Gordon Bintner appeared as Albert, half way through the first act, things took a distinctly upward turn. He was a delight, as was Sarah Gilford as Charlotte’s irritatingly perky younger sister.

For over twenty years the Royal Opera has staged no Massenet opera except Werther and Manon, apart from concert performances of Thaïs and Cendrillon. Might it not be time for a change, perhaps even a proper staging of Thaïs?