The first night audience at Covent Garden were all looking forward to hearing the marvellous voice of German tenor Jonas Kaufman in the title role of Massenet’s Werther, but he was below his best and clearly suffering from a cold or throat problems.
Nevertheless his place as star of the show was brilliantly taken by the young Russian mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina who was stunningly impressive in the leading role of Charlotte.
The plot of the opera is based on a novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, written by Goethe in the late 18th century.
Werther and Charlotte were childhood sweethearts but Werther went away for some time and returned to discover that she had just married the rather stiff and pompous Albert, following a vow she made on her mother’s deathbed.
He is totally distraught, goes away again but ends up killing himself.
It is all terribly melodromatic, but works suprisingly well as an opera. Massenet’s music changes subtly from the joyous reunion at the start, growing sadder as the plot develops and ending in a fittingly tragic style.
At the start, Kaufmann was clearly having problems increasing his volume when it was called for, even sometimes being drowned by the orchestra.
But his gloriously silky and passionate voice came through in the final duet with Charlotte when he is dying after shooting himself.
The orchestra, conducted by Antonio Pappano, gave a beautifully sensitive performance, the direction, a revival of a 2004 production by Benoît Jacquot, captured the romance and the sadness of the story perfectly, the overall singing and acting were excellent.
But the overwhelming feeling at the end was just how magnificent the whole thing would have been if Kaufmann had not been under the weather. Let us hope he recovers quickly, when he and Akhmetshina will give audiences a real treat.
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