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| The Sunday Times, January 24,
2010 |
| Hugh Canning |
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Massenet: Werther, Paris, 14. Januar 2010 |
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Jonas Kaufmann’s Werther is set to be a true original
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A few days earlier, I braved Eurostar to
catch something London should have experienced four or five years ago: Jonas
Kaufmann’s debut as Massenet’s Werther. The Royal Opera had planned it for
the first revival of its new staging by Benoît Jacquot, but Kaufmann
withdrew to sing a new Carmen production in his home house, Zurich, and the
RO wisely — great Werthers being thin on the ground — nixed the revival.
London’s loss has been Paris’s gain, even though Jacquot’s production,
with sets by Britain’s Charles Edwards, was no great shakes. Nicholas Joël,
director of the Opéra Nationale, evidently thinks otherwise, for he has
bought it from Covent Garden.
Although recovering from a cold that had forced him to cancel the dress
rehearsal, Kaufmann’s debut in one of the most coveted and difficult
romantic tenor roles must be accounted a personal triumph, especially in
Paris and among an all-French-speaking cast. He is the first German I have
heard in the role, but he sings clear, only slightly accented French, brings
a broad palette of colour, with his dark baritonal timbre and ringing
tenorial top, and looks the tormented, suicidal poet to the life, elegant
and handsome in Christian Gasc’s period costumes. By his great Ossian solo
in Act III, Pourquoi me reveiller?, he had thrown earlier caution to the
wings and rightly brought the house down. When he is in full vocal health,
his Werther will surely go down as one of the all-time greats. He was
surrounded by luxury Francophone support, a rare pleasure in this opera
until quite recently. Sophie Koch’s delicate, feminine Charlotte is the best
thing I’ve seen and heard her do (good news that she will sing the role when
the production returns to London next season), and Ludovic Tezier’s Albert,
Anne-Catherine Gillet’s Sophie and Alain Vernhes’s Bailli could scarcely be
bettered today.
The veteran maître, Michel Plasson, was making — astonishingly — his first
appearance at the Opéra Bastille. He is one of the world’s most experienced
Massenetistes, and if his approach to this composer now sounds a bit
old-fashioned, he conducts this beautiful score with evident love and
understanding. I haven’t enjoyed the opera as much in decades. Kaufmann’s
Werther certainly vaut la visite, if you can lay your hands on a ticket. |
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