A late CCC -
Colin’s Cultural Corner
Werther - Jules Massenet
Royal Opera House - 17th June 2023
Another rehearsal at Covent Garden and another opera I’ve never seen or knowingly heard anything from. I do know that it’s a bit of a bleak tale of tragic love and death but that’s just opera so I’m thinking it’ll be like the others.
Musically it’s a lush romantic score so I was expecting to be blown away by the music, conducted by Antonio Pappano, who I’ve learnt can find power and drama in any score.
I was sitting up in the Amphitheatre for this one. Front row. Centre seat. Curtain up on a really sort of nondescript set which I am struggling to recall much detail of as I’m writing this a few days later (and that’s why I try to write these the day after I’ve seen something rather than leave it for a few days but heigh-ho).
Just remembered the set!! I thought it was a street set in a Mediterranean village, all soft yellow stone, windows surrounded by bougainvillea, and a huge wall suggesting another house. Softly lit like it’s being caressed by the setting sun. Hints of a small beach upstage centre but out of sight.
Turns out that it was the courtyard of a large house and the huge wall was actually the gate. The bougainvillea was inside the courtyard surrounding a little fountain that trickled all the way through the performance and I’m sure caused the huge queue for the toilets in the intervals.
Back to the plot. The house belongs to the elderly mayor of this town/village, he’s written as a massive 50 years old. He lives there with his two daughters, Charlotte, aged 20 and Sophie, 15 children and half a dozen much younger children. Charlotte helps to look after the kids and is acting as teacher and mother combined. The other one is a bit of a dreamer.
Werther, an idealistic poet of just 23 years, here performed by Jonas Kaufmann who’s actually 53 and no longer blessed with the physique that a 23 year old itinerant poet would have, arrives and announces that he’s taking Charlotte to a huge party that evening.
Off they go to the party. Presumably they have a whale of a time but we next see them around dawn when they’re returning to the house. Werther declares his love for Charlotte and it’s reciprocated. There’s one minor wrinkle though and that’s the whilst they’ve been out partying Albert, 25 and played by Gordon Bintner who I reckon is about 28-30 and could probably knock seven shades of excrement out of any podgy middle aged poet without even breaking a sweat, has returned to town. Oh and he’s engaged to Charlotte.
Sophie, the 15 year old daughter, takes it upon herself to tell Werther and Charlotte that Albert is back in town. Werther is distraught. Charlotte apologies for forgetting all about Albert in the six months he’s been away.
Werther remains distraught throughout the rest of the opera. Charlotte quickly regains her composure and tells W to leave so she can marry A and to return at Christmas. He goes off in a huff after singing that he’s so distraught he doesn’t know if he’ll ever return.
Charlotte marries Albert and we next see them on Christmas Eve. Werther has written to her and said that he won’t return as he’s in love with her so much that it hurts. He says that he’s unlikely to ever return or ever love another. Sophie appears more upset at this than Charlotte does but then Albert confronts her about a letter from W she’s hidden. He’s not found it but can sense that something’s up and that she still loves Werther.
Albert goes off in a strop and Charlotte is distraught.
Werther returns. He announces to Charlotte that he didn’t think he’d see another Christmas but had to return once more to ask her a favour. That favour is to borrow a couple of pistols. Albert decides that he’s happy to do an old friend a favour and tells Charlotte that Werther can borrow the pistols.
Charlotte is distraught when she realises what Werther is going to do with the pistols (which have now been sent to him). Albert is distraught that Charlotte is distraught that Werther is distraught. Sophie couldn’t really care less.
We hear a gunshot off stage and revealed is a huge surprise, that nobody ever could have seen coming a mile off, a bloodstained Werther. He’s tried to commit suicide by shooting himself.
I’m guessing that poets don’t know much about biology even though he’s supposedly an intelligent and well educated man. He’s got two pistols. He’s shot himself once. In the stomach.
Charlotte runs to his side where they sing about how distraught they each are. They do this individually and together. Werther is keen to express that he’s doubly distraught at the idea of not being buried in consecrated ground. He also declares that he loves her.
She’s distraught at his declaration of love and that he might not be buried in a churchyard and she agrees to bury his body somewhere he specifies whilst being distraught over something or other. He dies.
Charlotte remains distraught and returns to Albert where presumably they live an utterly miserable and wretched life whilst being distraught over Sophie’s likely future as a first class bitch.
I was distraught in the first act as for some reason I started to get a little vertigo. Not being one to suffer unnecessarily, nor one to become distraught about asking if there are any other seats I could be moved to I presented myself to the Manager and asked if there was anywhere else I could sit. He informed me that of course there was and then promptly assigned me an entire box to myself.
An usher escorted me to the box and when she opened the door was, you guessed it, distraught! There were four people sitting in the box already. Clearly they’d snuck in and had hoped to hide in there as they’d moved all their seats towards the back in order to remain hidden by the staff.
The usher apologised for interrupting them, asked to see their tickets and then requested that they return to their seats which were in the very back row of the Amphitheatre!
I admired their chutzpah at moving from £10 seats to a £1,000 box and just chancing that they’d not be discovered but discovered they were and I had the box to myself for the remaining two thirds of the most depressing opera I’ve seen so far. I won’t rush back to see Werther if when it appears in a future season and I’m unlikely to head back into a box either but I’m not distraught over either of those things.
View from the box. Those little black things in the red velvet are screens for the surtitles. There are others a bit higher in the walls of the box so that the folks sitting behind can easily see them.
And this was the box next door - the Royal Box!
