Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet, based on Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. It was first performed in Vienna on 16 February 1892, sung in German, before reaching Paris the following year. It tells of the impossible love of the young poet Werther for Charlotte, betrothed and then married to Albert, a love that will drive him to suicide. It contains one of the best-loved tenor arias in the French repertoire, "Pourquoi me réveiller".
Act I. In Wetzlar, around 1780, the Bailiff, a widowed magistrate, rehearses Christmas carols with his younger children. His eldest daughter, Charlotte, has run the household since her mother's death. The young poet Werther accompanies her to a ball and falls in love with her. That same evening Albert returns: Charlotte is promised to him by a vow made to her dying mother. Werther, in despair, understands that she will keep her word.
Act II. Months later, Charlotte and Albert are married. Werther watches them and cannot extinguish his love. Charlotte asks him to go away and not to return until Christmas. Werther leaves, haunted by thoughts of death.
Act III. On Christmas Eve, Charlotte rereads Werther's letters alone and admits to herself that she loves him. Werther appears unannounced and stirs their shared memories; reading some verses of Ossian, he sings "Pourquoi me réveiller". Charlotte, on the point of yielding, flees and locks herself away. Werther sends word to Albert asking to borrow his pistols for a long journey. Albert coldly orders his wife to hand them over. Charlotte, sensing the worst, rushes after Werther.
Act IV. On Christmas night, Charlotte finds Werther mortally wounded in his study. In his last moments, she confesses her love at last. Werther dies at peace while outside the children sing their Christmas carol.
Goethe's epistolary novel, published in 1774, had shaken the whole of Europe and fed the Romantic imagination for a century. Massenet composed his adaptation in the 1880s, on a libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann. The Opéra-Comique in Paris at first rejected the score as too dark.
The premiere finally took place at the Court Opera in Vienna, on 16 February 1892, in a German version, with great success. The French premiere followed soon after: the Opéra-Comique presented the work in Paris in January 1893. Since then, Werther has taken its place alongside Manon among Massenet's most frequently performed operas.
Massenet deploys his melodic gift here in the service of an intimate, twilight atmosphere. Werther's aria "Pourquoi me réveiller", on the verses of Ossian, is the most celebrated passage in the work and a proving ground for lyric tenors. The third act belongs to Charlotte: the letter scene and the aria "Va! laisse couler mes larmes" make this role, written for mezzo-soprano or low soprano, one of the richest in the French repertoire.
The orchestra comments on the action with refinement: the moonlight music of the first act, which returns transformed at the end, or the interlude called "La Nuit de Noël", which precedes the final scene. The contrast between the children's carols and Werther's dying moments produces an ending of quiet, understated sadness.
Werther is perhaps the French opera that best portrays impossible passion, with an economy of means that brings it close to today's sensibility: few characters, an inward action, an orchestra that says what the protagonists leave unsaid. As an introduction to Massenet's art, it is the best place to start.
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