Tuesday 25 / February / 2025
Muscat: His heart is breaking, his letters cause a sensation, and the music is spell-binding...A beautiful opera about the heartache of unrequited love comes to Muscat with one of the world’s most prestigious opera companies – the incomparable Vienna State Opera. Vienna is the birthplace of classical music. It is where masters like Mozart and Beethoven worked, and from where the Vienna State Operadraws its inspiration and musicianship. The orchestra of the Vienna State Opera is the orchestra from which the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the most celebrated symphonic orchestra in the World, recruits its members from. It is especially famous for its annual New Year’s Concert which is broadcast live to many millions of viewers around the world.
The plot of the opera, Werther is based on a novel by the great Romantic poet Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther. With unprecedented depth of feeling, the novel was a sensation in its time, causing a passionate phenomenon known as ‘Werther Fever’, with young men throughout Europe adopting the smart blue and yellow clothes worn by Werther.Masterfully composed by Jules Massenet, the music for opera,Werther, endows the story with powerful poignancy and a dramatic impact great enough to rival the Werther Fever of the late nineteenth century and bring it resoundingly into our lives today.
Completed in 1887 Werther presents the fateful story of the poet Werther’s hopeless love for Charlotte, the loyal wife of a close friend.The opera relates this deeply tender story with music of great beauty and eloquence. Understood to be in part autobiographical, Goethe’s epistolary novel, in which the story is told through letters written by Werther, offers a revelatory glimpse into the psychological impact and consequences of unfulfilled love. Although the novel has inspired many operatic versions, it is Jules Massenet who most brilliantly catches the spirit of Goethe’s literary masterpiece.WhileMassenet relates a tale that is unrelentingly tragic, the opera is at the same time uplifting because of the transcending quality of the music and the truth it reveals about the human condition.
A work of irresistible melodic beauty,Werther isone of the most memorable French operas from the golden age of music in the late nineteenth century and is today recognised as a great work of art within the realm of world-renowned opera. Wertherhas attractedalmost universal admiration in part becausethe literary underpinnings of the opera are deeply integrated into the music.And, because the musical expression is remarkably authentic and sincere, this romantic operais likely to be disarming, even for the most cynical non-romantic.
The opera features two of the greatest arias in the world repertoire – “Va! Laisse couler mes larmes”(Go! Let my tears flow)sung by mezzo-soprano Charlotteand“Pourquoi me rèveiller?”(Why do you wake me now?)sung bythe tenor, Werther.In their emotional power and melodic richness, the arias encapsulate the qualities that account for the enduring popularity of this great work. The combination of Goethe’s realistic, almost autobiographical narrative with the lofty beauty of Massenet’s music has produced for modern audiences a profoundly moving and shocking experience.
The Royal Opera House Muscat will host two performances –on Thursday, 14th April, and Saturday 16th April 2016 at 7.30 pm.
For further information and booking, consult the ROHM website www.rohmuscat.org.om
