"Werther" by Jules Massenet at the Gran Teatre del Liceu

In 1774, The Sorrows of Young Werther was published-a novel with autobiographical features by the then-unknown 25-year-old German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It quickly became a milestone in world literature. It is a work that belongs to the Romantic period and is one of the best exponents of the Sturm und Drang movement. An epistolary novel, it tells the story of Werther, a passionate young man who writes letters to his friend Wilhelm about his obsessive love for Charlotte, who rejects him in order to marry another man, as she had promised her dying mother.

The success of the novel, paradoxically, turned into a major social problem, since in January 1775 a wave of suicides for love inspired by the romantic hero began. These cases continued for several years and became a phenomenon that was later much studied and widely publicized throughout Europe. Fascinated by the intensity of the plot, Massenet began composing the music in 1885.

Premiered in German at the Wiener Staatsoper in February 1892, it enjoyed moderate success. It was not until the performances in Geneva and Paris, in the French version, that it established itself as one of the composer's best works.

The role of Werther, because of its vocal difficulty, is often called the French Tristan and reserves for Charlotte some of the most intense and dramatic pages of the entire repertoire. Xabier Anduaga (making his debut in the role) and Matthew Polenzani will alternate with Charlottes Kristina Stanek and Elmina Hasan. Prodigious voices will immerse us in this score, which is nothing less than an intimate confession of restrained feelings, inner expressions borne by a moving and exquisitely delicate melodic line and an elegant orchestral framework.

This new production, originating from La Scala in Milan and directed by Christof Loy, focuses on the interpersonal mechanisms and psychological aspects of the characters. With an intimate focus on the protagonists, it places them in an elegant and essential, clear set design evoking the 1950s, dominated by a large horizontal wall that encloses the action of the main characters and suffocates them in their deepest emotions. This wall divides the world of domestic intimacy, affections, and feelings (that of the family, which Werther can never enter) from the outside world. The sparseness of the space gives additional, highly suggestive symbolic charge to the elements.

Conformity and conventional norms will be a prison impossible to overcome and what will determine their fate: to face personal tragedy and death as the only possible outcome. Charlotte will arrive too late. Werther is already dying as she confesses her desperate love for him. Outside, children sing of the birth of Jesus. An overwhelming contrast that will give us goosebumps.

Lyrical drama in four acts and five tableaux

Libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet, and Georges Hartmann based on the work Die Leiden des jungen Werthers by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• World premiere: 16/02/1892 at the Wiener Staatsoper
• Barcelona premiere: 29/04/1899 at the Gran Teatre del Liceu (in Italian)
• Last performance at the Liceu: 02/02/2017
• Total performances at the Liceu: 64?