Massenet: Werther | Peter Dvorsky, Brigitte Fassbaender - Petr Weigl (Opera Film 1985)

Composer: Jules Massenet
Librettist: Edouard Blau, and Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann
Premiere: 16 February 1892, Imperial Theatre Hofoper (Vienna)
Language: French
Translation: English Subtitles
Werther Synopsis: https://www.opera-arias.com/massenet/werther/synopsis/

Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Aged 24 at the time, Goethe finished Werther in five and a half weeks of intensive writing in January to March 1774. It instantly placed him among the foremost international literary celebrities and was among the best known of his works. The novel is made up of biographical and auto-biographical facts in relation to two triangular relationships and one individual: Goethe, Christian Kestner, and Charlotte Buff (who married Kestner); Goethe, Peter Anton Brentano, Maximiliane von La Roche (who married Brentano), and Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem, who died by suicide on the night of Oct 29 or 30, 1772. He shot himself in the head with a pistol borrowed from Kestner.

The novel was adapted as the opera Werther by Jules Massenet in 1892. Although Massenet wrote and completed his opera in 1887, it did not receive any performance until it premiered at the Imperial Theatre Hofoper in Vienna on February 16, 1892, in a German version translated by Max Kalbeck. It had a great success and it rappidly confirmed Jules Massenet's position on the French opera scene. It achieved enormous popularity outside France, notably in Italy, America and England. The French-language premiere followed in Geneva on December 27, 1892, and the first performance in France was at the Opéra-Comique, Paris on January 16, 1893.

The tragic story takes place in Wetzlar, Germany, within the period July to December, in an undefined year in the 1780s. It tells of Werther's intense passion for Charlotte, whom he falls hopelesly in love with at first sight. Charlotte instead marries his best friend, Albert, fulfilling a pledge to her now deceased mother. From a self-imposed exile, Werther pens letters that kindle Charlotte's feelings. When Werther comes to her, she is torn between her love and her duty, but finally sends him away forever. For his part, Albert is aware of the emotions at play around the trio, but is powerless to stop the inevitable outcome. When Charlotte discovers that Werther means to end his life, she rushes to his side and pours out her true heart to him as he expires.

This film production was shot on location in and out Prague and was directed by the distinguished Czech director, Petr Weigl, twice winner of the Prix Italia, and director of the internationally acclaimed films, including Pas de quatre, Labyrinth der Macht, and Romeo and Juliet, all of which received international awards.

Cast & Characters
Werther - Peter Dvorsky
Charlotte - Brigitte Fassbaender
Sophie - Magda Vášáryová (vocals by Magdaléna Hajóssyová)
Albert - Michal Dočolomanský (vicals by Hans Helm)
Le Bailli - František Zvarík (vocals by Peter Mikulás)
Johann - Pavel Kühn
Schmidt - Miroslav Kopp
Brühlmann - Lubomir Vraspir
Kätchen - Vera Cerna

Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra
Bambini di Praga Chorus
Conductor: Libor Pesek
Director: Petr Weigl