The 17 February 2021 OperaWednesday presented highlights from Werther by Massenet streamed from the Sándor Hevesi Stage of the Eiffel Art Studios. The performance was available from 8:00 p.m. on Facebook and Origo.hu.
Goethe dashed out The Sorrows of Young Werther in all of six weeks. The novel, which relates, through a series of letters, the hopeless love of a young poet who chooses death to escape his torments, became an immediate best seller, at a stroke both catapulting its author to fame and launching the Werther cult: women perfumed themselves with Eau de Werther, Werther attire was hawked to men, while a noticeable spike in suicides ensued across Germany. With exquisite sensitivity, Jules Massenet found the musical and dramatic language to transform the German epistolary novel into one of the most heart-wrenching love stories in the operatic literature.
The highlights of the opera were presented in a concert version by soloists Zsolt Haja (Werther), Gabriella Balga (Charlotte), Csaba Szegedi (Albert) and Zita Szemere (Sophie) accompanied on the piano by Pálma Hidegkuti. Artistic director of the performance: Kati Lázár, narrator: Dániel Mona.
The performance can be viewed HERE.
Photo by Edina Ligeti