(c) Opera National de Paris Massenet's Werner: Paris Opera
Paris, Opéra Bastille — Main Auditorium
About the Event
This masterpiece of French opera is returning to the Paris Opera in a new production. Seeking to restore the epistolary form of Goethe’s novel to its rightful place, Robert Carsen places literature at the centre of his staging by setting the action in a huge library.
“Werther has caused more suicides than the world’s most beautiful woman,” wrote Madame de Staël. Indeed, Goethe’s first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, published in 1774, was a literary and aesthetic shock for an entire generation, foreshadowing Romanticism.
Composed a century later, at the end of the 19th century, Jules Massenet’s opera, inspired by the novel, dissects the nature of love. The fatal passion between Werther and Charlotte is embodied in lyrical music that is alternately melancholic and fiery, marked by the famous aria “Why wake me, O breath of spring?”.
Cast / Production
Jules Massenet
Music (1842‐1912)
Édouard Blau, Paul Millet et Georges Hartmann Libretto
Nathalie Stutzmann
Conductor
Robert Carsen
Director
Radu Boruzescu
Set design
Luis F. Carvalho
Costume design
Peter Van Praet
Lighting design
Marco Berriel
Choreography
Cast
Benjamin Bernheim
Werther (11 20 Feb.)
Léo Vermot‐Desroches
Werther
Aigul Akhmetshina
Charlotte
Gordon Bintner
Albert
Sandra Hamaoui
Sophie (11 Feb. 2 March)
Johanna Wallroth
Sophie (6 12 March)
Laurent Naouri
Le Bailli
Christophe Mortagne
Schmidt
Franck Leguérinel
Johann
The Paris Opera Orchestra
ADO / The Paris Opera's Youth Choir
A coproduction with the Festspielhaus Baden‐Baden
Address
Opéra Bastille, Place de la Bastille, Paris, France — Google Maps
