| Description |
1 online resource (1 video file (2 hr., 41 min., 51 sec.)) : sound, color |
| Playing Time |
024151 |
| Description |
digital |
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video file |
| Physical Medium |
polychrome |
| Note |
Libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet, Georges Hartmann, after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. |
| Performer |
Jonas Kaufmann (Werther) ; Sophie Koch (Charlotte) ; Ludovic Tézier (Albert) ; Anne-Catherine Gillet (Sophie) ; Alain Vernhes (Le Bailli) ; Andreas Jaggi (Schmidt) ; Christian Tréguier (Johann) ; Alexandre Duhamel (Bruhlmann) ; Olivia Doray (Kätchen) ; Orchestre du Théâtre National de l'Opéra de Paris ; Maîtrise des Hauts-de-Seine-Choeur d'enfants de l'Opéra national de Paris ; Michel Plasson, conductor. |
| Summary |
In Massenet's masterpiece, based on Goethe's Sorrows of the Young Werther, tears never cease to flow from the very moment the moonlit set is revealed and closed. "My whole being cries at it" says Werther. We are a long way from opera's usual tears, be they furtive or violent. These tears flow slowly and inexorably, one by one. Patient tears as Charlotte puts it. In the space of four acts, they will have done their work. Charlotte cannot hold the tears back as she rereads Werther's letters. They will flow in front of Sophie, the angel of consolation. They will flow when Werther reads Ossian. And finally they will flow at the sight of Werther's blood-soaked body. Yet Werther refuses these last tears: for now he is happy and free. Werther is a long requiem, lacrimosa dies illa, a tearful day if ever there was. A requiem for a young poet ending in paradisum. For Werther, of course, could only be a poet: that is to say, above the world, yet nevertheless enslaved to it. Death hovers above him, and Massenet marked his song with the sign, evoked by Rilke in his Sonnets to Orpheus, of those who are to die young. |
| Language |
Sung in French; English subtitles. |
| Subject |
Operas.
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Operas. |
| Genre/Form |
Internet videos.
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Internet videos.
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Video recordings.
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Video recordings.
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| Added Author |
Jacquot, Benoît, 1947- film director.
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Blau, Édouard, 1836-1906, librettist.
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Milliet, Paul, 1848-1924, librettist.
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Hartmann, Georges, 1843-1900, librettist.
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Kaufmann, Jonas, singer.
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Koch, Sophie, singer.
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Tézier, Ludovic, 1968- singer.
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Gillet, Anne-Catherine, singer.
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Vernhes, Alain, 1944- singer.
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Jäggi, Andreas, singer.
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Treguier, Christian, singer.
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Duhamel, Alexandre, singer.
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Doray, Olivia, singer.
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Plasson, Michel, conductor.
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Based on (work): Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832.
Leiden des jungen Werthers.
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Container of (work): Massenet, Jules, 1842-1912.
Werther.
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Idéale Audience International, production company.
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Opéra national de Paris, production company.
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ARTE France, production company.
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Opéra de Paris. Orchestre, instrumentalist.
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Maîtrise des Hauts-de-Seine, singer.
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