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musicOMH, 15 March 2014 |
by Melanie Eskenazi |
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Massenet: Werther, Metropolitan Opera, 15. März 2014 |
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Werther – The Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD
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Ah, here we are again. Come interval time, the ‘live’ Met audience gets to
go out and have a snack / drinks / quiet sob or whatever, for 40 minutes –
meanwhile, here in London at the IMAX, we are allowed 20 minutes – it takes
5-7 just to get down the 4 flights of steps – and then are herded back in,
with threats of being shut out if we don’t return in time. What for? To
spend twenty minutes watching inane interviews and what felt like a very
long plug for the next showing; if I want to see that, I’ll come and do so,
I don’t need to be ‘sold’ it, and neither did anyone else around me. Rant
over.
Since we are unlikely to get this casting in London, it was
clearly worth going, and at least we did not have to put up with a sound
failure during the final seven minutes, as most U.S. cinema audiences
apparently did. Jonas Kaufmann is today’s leading Werther, just as he is
Parsifal, Cavaradossi, Carlos, Faust, Siegmund… and will probably soon leave
every other tenor’s Otello in the dust. Is he that remarkable? Well, yes,
and his smouldering good looks are the least of it. It’s the voice, stupid,
and the interpretation, and the French diction which makes even native
speakers sound woolly. ‘Ô Nature’ and ‘Pourquoi me réveiller’ were both
absolutely stunning, the grandiose climaxes thrillingly taken and held, the
quiet phrases searching in their intensity. Nothing else in the performance
matched his singing. He gives his all in terms of acting, too, and when you
hear those hushed tones at ‘A cette heure suprême’ you don’t actually want
him to die just yet – I do quite often find myself wishing Werther would get
on with it.
Sophie Koch has had a very successful European career and
this was her house debut. Her mezzo is big, loud and rich, and she looks
statuesque. She left me totally unmoved. Even during ‘Va! Laisse couler mes
larmes’ I found her singing impeccable yet detached. It was impossible not
to warm to the Sophie of Lisette Oropesa, who was almost too winsome, and
the genial, nobly sung Albert of David Bišić. Jonathan Summers was a
sympathetic Bailiff, and the Met orchestra, now at its absolute peak, was
authoritatively conducted by Alain Altinoglu.
As might be expected,
the production was ‘stagey,’ but Rob Howell’s sets and designs fitted well
with Richard Eyre’s concept of the piece; there was little to move to tears,
but a lot to savour. This was a mostly traditional concept, the freshness of
nature contrasting with the oppressiveness of Charlotte’s married home, yet
there was a feeling of the contemporary in such aspects as the dislocated
walls of the family house and the use of video projections to show the
passing of the seasons. A pleasing union of past and present came with
Werther’s garret, seen first almost as the kind of ‘light box’ beloved of
the 18th century and then as a fully ‘opened-out’ setting for the (more than
usually gory) death.
If you missed it this time around you can catch
it again at the ‘encore’ showing on March 30th. Next up in the series is La
bohème on April 5th, Così fan tutte on April 24th, and La Cenerentola on May
10th, the last featuring the Rossini ‘dream team’ of Joyce di Donato and
Juan Diego Flórez.
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