Massenet’s Werther

Goethe’s 1774 novel about a lovesick poet’s infatuation with a married woman took Europe by storm and inspired countless adaptations. Yet it is in the hands of Jules Massenet that this literary classic found its most sensuous and charged theatrical form. With soaring melodies, voluptuous orchestrations, and scenes that represent both the vastness of love and the cramped claustrophobia of the hero’s mind, this opera is the very essence of a love story told through music.