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Opera News, May 2014 |
F. Paul Driscoll |
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Massenet: Werther, Metropolitan Opera, February 2014 |
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Werther, Metropolitan Opera
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The premiere of the Metropolitan Opera's Richard Eyre staging of Massenet's
Werther (seen Feb. 18) marked Jonas Kaufmann's fourth new Met production in
fewer than three years — a statistic that gives some measure of the tenor's
importance to the company, especially when one considers that his first Met
appearance was just eight years ago, in a revival of the company's
then-current Zeffirelli staging of La Traviata. In that 2006 Traviata,
Kaufmann's Alfredo was somewhat at odds with his surroundings: his fresh,
nakedly honest performance and raw-boned physique stood in bracing contrast
to the overstuffed coziness of the staging. Since then, Kaufmann has built
capital with the company — and won the devotion of its audience — with his
splendid work as Tamino, Cavaradossi, Don Jose, Faust, Siegmund and
Parsifal, all performances defined by the tenor's singular combination of
personal glamour, emotional vulnerability and fiercely committed singing.
But Kaufmann has technique that is equal to his talent. He is an artist with
the looks and manners of a prince, who deploys his lean, dark-edged tenor
with the shrewdness of a peasant: his effects are judged masterfully in
order to deliver singing that is unfailingly passionate yet never savage or
wild. Kaufmann arrived onstage in this season's bespoke Werther as a
full-fledged superstar with a rock-solid connection to his audience: the
thrilling, slightly nervy spontaneity of the Kaufmann persona defined Eyre's
production, which moved the action forward from the rational atmosphere of
the late eighteenth century to the more Romantic ambience of Massenet's own
time. This Werther — the company's first new staging of the Massenet opera
since 1971 —proved to be an ideal vehicle for Kaufmann in every sense of the
word: the tenor drove the show all evening with the assurance of a man
behind the wheel of a custom-built car.
Kaufmann's vocal and dramatic
integrity was consistently impressive and frequently astonishing. He is not
a rigorously refined stylist in the manner of Spanish tenor Alfredo Kraus,
whose Werther defined the role for a generation; Kaufmann's French vowels
were occasionally distorted in the service of dramatic emphasis, and he
sometimes changes the shape of a musical phrase in order to "lift" into one
of the crooned piano moments that he and his audience revel in. Kraus's
Werther was immaculately aristocratic, including his death scene — a
departure from life as gallant and clean as that of Captain de Boeldieu in
La Grande Illusion. Kaufmann's Werther died a messy death, with the shot
fired in full view of the audience and blood spattered on the walls of his
tiny room. The suicide registered as an unambiguous act of rage, the
culmination of the anger that infused Kaufmann's characterization. He
created a Werther who was wounded emotionally from the moment of his first
entrance: the unhappy obsession with Charlotte seemed like a destiny
fulfilled, and his attack on Charlotte in Act III had the petulant
sloppiness of a child's tantrum — a calculated risk that worked.
Eyre's production concept seemed intent on repositioning the character of
Charlotte within the narrative of the opera as a neurasthenic equal to
Werther himself: the prelude was staged to show the death and burial of
Charlotte's mother, and after the death of Werther in Act III, Charlotte
reached for the pistols as if she were contemplating her own suicide. In her
much-anticipated Met debut, the distinguished French mezzo-soprano Sophie
Koch looked appropriately maidenly or matronly in the belle époque dresses
designed by Rob Howell — the chic Act I ball gown a la Worth was
particularly effective — but made a puzzlingly equivocal impression vocally
and dramatically, despite Eyre's reimagination of her character. After a few
handsomely turned phrases in Act I, Koch sounded unsettled to the point of
harshness for most of the evening, her manner chilly rather than composed
and her acting generalized. This was nowhere more damaging than in the
potentially glorious Act III sequence that pairs Charlotte successively with
Sophie, Werther and Albert.
The production itself was effectively
abstract in Acts I and II, when Howell's set designs were augmented by the
imaginative video designs of Wendall K. Harrington and the well-judged
lighting of Peter Mumford. Act III was far less interesting visually —
Charlotte and Albert evidently lived in an enormous lending library —and the
action sagged when Werther was not onstage. Lisette Oropesa, a potentially
ideal Sophie, was badly blocked in her Act III scene with Charlotte, and
David Bain slick Albert remained a dramatic cipher in his crucial final
scene with his wife. Alain Altinoglu conducted the show with admirable
politesse if little dramatic flair.
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