After a longish hiatus, time to resume the occasional mash-up of SNLC with the Metropolitan Opera HD-cast series begun by DK'er Demi Moaned some time back. Thus today's variation on the usual start-up question for said mash-up series goes:
Anyone see the Met HD-cast of Werther today?
Today's performance was the last one in this season's run of Werther at the Met. Besides featuring one of today's star tenors in the title role, Jonas Kaufmann, the production was notable for the house debut of the French mezzo-soprano Sophie Koch as his love interest, Charlotte. (And don't panic, as the pronunciation rhymes, kind of, with "plush". No relation at all to today's 1% villains du jour.) More below la flippe.....
First, per the usual start, to get everyone up to speed on the opera, with music by Jules Massenet and libretto by Edouart Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann, the Met's on-line synopsis is here. If you know your 18th-19th century German literature (or even if you don't), Werther is based on the classic novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther), by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, published in 1774, with a revised version appearing in 1787. The novel is in epistolary (letter) form, told from the point of view of the title character as the tale of his hopeless love for Sophie, who winds up with another man, Albert, is told. The effect of the novel at the time of its publication was sensational, with young men adopting aspects of Werther's dress, but also unfortunately evidently leading to quite a few young men sadly emulating Werther's final act, out of hopeless love or similar psychological stress. In fact, in academic circles (and probably nowhere else), the latter phenomenon is sometimes called "the Werther effect", such as described by the academic David Phillips in this 1974 paper (for those who can access this paper at certain universities).
The main print publication reviews of the production, directed by Richard Eyre, are at these links, to tap the usual suspects:
(1) Anthony Tommasini, NYT
(2) Martin Bernheimer, Financial Times
Generally, when comparing and contrasting their respective reviews over the years, Tommasini tends to be more indulgent or deferential towards the Met, while Bernheimer is not afraid to let the snark fly when he doesn't care for a Met production or aspects of it. You can see that in this passage, for example (obvious spoiler alert, but then this is opera, and if you read the synopsis or know the novel, you know the ending anyway):
"The action, originally set in the late 18th century, is advanced a hundred years or more – reasons unclear. The simple Haus-Fräulein Charlotte becomes a sophisticated flirt who models a chic evening gown. At the end, after the long-suffering protagonist commits the slowest of suicides, she declares her belated love, pointing a pistol to her pretty head as the curtain mercifully falls."
What's a bit of a surprise is to see Tommasini, in his mild-mannered way, aim his share of critical zingers, such as:
"Mr. Eyre’s production, while essentially traditional, uses video imaginatively and has a look that suggests the late 19th century, the era of the work’s premiere. Opera fans who dislike concept-driven contemporary stagings will find nothing objectionable here. And for me, that’s the problem. This is one of those play-it-safe productions that split the difference between faithfully depicting a period and injecting a few contemporary elements."
Or about the back-story acted out over the orchestral prelude to the opera:
"Though it is not terribly objectionable to tell the story so literally, it is not necessary and, on balance, less effective."
Bernheimer, as usual, is more forthright in his disdain:
"The curtain rises, prematurely, on mime episodes depicting the death and funeral of the heroine’s mother, neither reflected in the score."
It's also sometimes interesting to see how two people can have such different perceptions of the same performance, such as their respective evaluations of the conductor Alain Altinoglu and the orchestra:
Tommasini: "The French conductor Alain Altinoglu led a beautifully restrained account of the score, drawing supple, deep-textured and nuanced playing from the Met orchestra."
Bernheimer: "Eyre & Co. seem embarrassed by any threat of aesthetic nostalgia. In the pit, Alain Altinoglu, the gutsy conductor, reinforces similar priorities. Apart from some star-tenor indulgences, he favours brisk tempos, generous decibels and rousing climaxes. Forget period sensitivity. Forget elegance."
One almost wonders if they saw the same performance. (They did. The reviews are dated the same day.)
Eyre directed the excellent Carmen production at the Met several years back that was also HD'ed, with Elīna Garanča and Roberto Alagna in the lead roles. That production was updated a few decades from its original time, and Eyre did the same thing here. Originally, Garanča was set to sing Charlotte in this production, reuniting her with Eyre. However, EG withdrew because of her pregnancy, which led to SK getting the call for the role. SK was actually supposed to make her Met debut a few years earlier, though, per this Opera News article about SK by Jessica Duchen:
"She was contracted there in 2008 to sing Nicklausse in Offenbach's Contes d'Hoffmann, but the opera was then replaced with Carmen. "After that they offered me Barbiere [Rossini's The Barber of Seville] and Ariadne [Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos], and I was not free," she explains, "and Faust I turned down because it came too late for me. So this is a wonderful opportunity."
In one of the intermission chats during the Met HD-cast 2 weeks ago, for
Prince Igor, Eric Owens chatted with Kaufmann and Koch, as an obvious promo warm-up for the
Werther HD-cast. Unfortunately, if quite accidentally, Kaufmann answered one question with such a long, if very articulate, answer that Koch effectively got sidelined and didn't have much time for her part of the intermission chat. So I was wondering what would happen with the intermission banter this week. It turns out that with host Patricia Racette, the powers that be gave SK and JK each their own moment to chat with Racette. It does have to be said that SK is not quite as fluent with English communication as Kaufmann, but she's fine on her own terms. JK proved just as well-spoken today as last week, even acknowledging with good humor that Werther's own hopeless infatuation can seem really silly to a modern audience, when you might want to tell him to "just get over it".
A pre-recorded intermission chat was between Metropolitan Opera general director Peter Gelb and Richard Eyre, along with set designer Rob Howell. In fact, Eyre pretty much answered Bernheimer's initial question of why the updating to the next century, by saying to the effect that Massenet's opera was roughly contemporary with major dramatists such as Ibsen and Chekhov, theatrical territory that Eyre knows so well. It was also interesting that Howell said that neither JK nor SK referred to past productions when working in the current Met production, to which Gelb said with mild snark: "Very nice of them." In fairness, that's actually pretty gracious on the part of both JK and SK, since it implies that they didn't have to resort to any comments with the subtext of "we liked the other production better".
Eyre also spoke about having some action like the prologue, mentioned earlier, "acted out", even though the libretto didn't really call for it. This also touches on a bit of criticism of this aspect of the production from Tommasini, less overtly hostile and snarky than Bernheimer, but rather 'harsh' in AT's own way:
"The last act takes place in Werther’s study, rendered as a cramped room almost hovering in the middle of the darkened stage. Again, Mr. Eyre decides to make the story explicit. In the libretto, when the scene begins, Werther has already shot himself: We see him mortally wounded. Here, during the orchestra tableau that precedes this scene, Mr. Eyre shows us Mr. Kaufmann’s brooding, depressed Werther pointing a gun at his head but losing his will. Then, in an impulsive act, he shoots himself through the chest. Blood splatters on the back wall, a Martin Scorsese effect.
For all the intensity of Mr. Kaufmann’s acting, seeing the graphic suicide take place goes against the veiled nature of the opera."
I have to admit that I had AT's criticism in mind when watching the final scene. I can kind of see both sides of the argument, though. While it can be upsetting to show, close up in a movie house, someone shooting himself complete with bloody special effects, the flip side is that it's a reminder that such actions aren't pretty, and are inherently shocking in real life, even if opera is as removed from real-life standard human communication as one can get. Also, at the end, one wonders if someone read MB's review, because at the very end of this performance, SK as Charlotte holds a pistol in her hand, but the lights go black before she can do what Bernheimer said that Charlotte did at the very end on the first night. That actually works better, to leave you wondering "does she or doesn't she?".
JK was definitely very intense as Werther, and got the biggest applause in the cast, understandably so, particularly after his "hit" Act III aria, "Pourquoi me réveiller?", the closest moment the applause came to stopping the show. Here's a YT clip from another production of Werther, of this aria, with JK and SK in another production:
SK was quite good as Charlotte, if perhaps ever so slightly stiffer in terms of acting compared to Kaufmann, although you can argue that Charlotte is trying to be a proper and faithful wife throughout. It was a bit amusing to see the after-effect of JK and SK hugging at their first curtain call at the end, because of the blood stains on his clothing, and the fact that Charlotte was dressed in white in the final scene. Because this was the last performance in the run this season, you got confetti made from torn programs (presumably) floating from on high. Lisette Oropesa, the Nanetta Ford from the Falstaff HD-cast last December, was a very fine, soubrettish Sophie, Charlotte's sister. David Bižić, who sang Albert, the quite standard and conventional husband of Charlotte, did well, although Albert is admittedly a thankless role with not much to do, except one small moment of rising anger when he figures out that Werther is so fully infatuated with Charlotte, and when he tells Charlotte at the end of Act III to give the servant the box with the pistols to deliver to Werther. It was touching, to me, to see the British baritone Jonathan Summers as the bailiff, father to Charlotte and Sophie, as I don't think that I've ever seen him live or on HD. If you know your recordings of Britten opera's, Summers sings Captain Balstrode on Sir Colin Davis' recording of Peter Grimes for Philips. The thought flashed through my head that if some company wanted to stage a new production of John Adams' and Alice Goodman's Nixon in China, Summers might make a very good operatic Nixon.
Even with the bias inherent in an HD-cast in terms of sound, where the engineers can manipulate the balances such that the words can be heard more or less well even if the orchestra is too loud, I can see where Bernheimer's criticism of Alain Altinoglu's conducting has a point. There are definitely moments where some of the orchestra sounds might sound a tad forte and furious, although Altinoglu did seem to balance some of the quieter sections well. He was quite charming with his slightly fractured English when talking with Patricia Racette just at the end of intermission, and about how Massenet liked to vary his instrumentation for each opera that he wrote, to fit the subject matter, like including a saxophone in the orchestra for Werther, a very unusual instrument to put in a 19th-century opera.
This was my first experience of a complete Werther, now that I think about it, in any form, recorded, live, or Memorex-live like here. So I was interested in checking it out in that sense. On the whole, an afternoon well spent, even if my attention did wander at times because Massenet's music is so resolutely 19th century "French romantic" and "listener-friendly", i.e. not much chromaticism to spice things up a bit here and there. You can catch the encore next Wednesday, if so inclined.
With that, you can either:
(a) chat about the HD-cast or the opera, or:
(b) observe the usual SNLC protocol.
Or there isn't any reason that one can't do both :) . Neither, however, given 3CM's luck, seems more likely.....