Jonas Kaufmann is a true Werther original but
deserves a better setting
It is the old, modern
story: a good musical performance and bad stage production. The
trouble is that this is a DVD, so the visual element is of
particular importance.
Briefly, most of the opera is
played in tenebris. The set for Act 1 is in fact quite visible
enough: one does not want to see more because it is unsightly.
There is a piece of fine irony when Werther enters, expressing
his enchantment with the place and exclaiming that it embodies
all the beauties of nature. There is, of course, hardly anything
of nature in view. Act 2 should, I seem to recollect, depict a
small town on a Sunday morning, with church, pub and other items
typical of a semi-rural setting. This has become a barren,
windswept stage under a sullen, unchanging sky.
Acts 3
and 4 are too dark for one to be very sure of anything, and I
suppose it may be said that Werther's haggard expression and
bloodstained shift are made clear enough and that they are what
matter most. Occasionally there is an effect of light
beautifully irrradiating the face of Charlotte or Sophie. The
movement of characters is not happily managed and the treatment
of the tipsy Bacchus-idolaters is heavy-handed. No, I don't like
any of it.
Kaufmann's singing, on the other hand,
is rich and often extremely beautiful. Sophie Koch, a
few uneven phrases notwithstanding, is a touching and dignified
Charlotte. The Sophie and Albert, Anne-Catherine Gillet and
Ludovic Tézier, are uncommonly good singers, the latter a cypher
as to character, the former natural and charming. I don't
altogether admire Michel Plasson's conducting (too much is
allowed to drag, which with this production is the last thing
wanted), but the playing is thoughtful and intense, and every
care is taken over detail. In particular, Kaufmann's
work is sufficiently remarkable for it to deserve (like his
Lobengrin) in the near future a more worthy setting.
