Product Description

Jules Massanet's lyrical opera is transformed into a superb film production by Petr Weigl, shot on location in Prague, with music conducted by Libor Pesek. First produced by the Vienna Opera in February 1892, "Werther" rapidly confirmed Massanet's position on the French opera scene and achieved enormous popularity outside France, notably in Italy, America and England. The tragic story tells of Werther's intense passion for Charlotte, who has married his best friend, Albert, fulfilling a pledge to her now deceased mother. But Werther's letters of love bring Charlotte to his side when he promises to take his own life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #108078 in DVD
• Brand: Image Entertainment
• Released on: 1999-08-24
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Classical, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 101 minutes

Amazon.com
Opera is almost always about the great love one cannot have. Very few--such as Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites--transcend the intimacy of love and move into a larger, even epic vision. In a sense, forbidden lust and longing is the thing that fuels opera, and it's a perfect metaphor for the fact that very few "can have" and survive being filmed. Zeffirelli's La Traviata may be one of the few that vibrantly--and exquisitely--breathed to life in the midst of death on the big screen. Czech director Petr Weigl has attempted to do the same for Jules Massenet's music for Goethe's novel, Die Leiden Des Jungen Werthers, and the results are decidedly mixed. It's a tragic story about young Werther (Peter Dvorsky) who falls in love at first sight with Charlotte (Brigitte Fassbaender). After Charlotte marries someone else in order to fulfill a promise to her recently deceased mother, Werther refuses to be deterred, and writes copious letters to his heart's desire. She sends him away in order to honor her commitment, and only when he threatens to kill himself does she rush to his side and pour her heart out to her dying beloved. Fassbaender and Dvorsky certainly heave, pose, and yearn but Werther is surprisingly stagnant in its presentation, and the continuous separation and isolation of its lovers makes their plight stillborn and remote and, by ultimately focusing so ardently on interiors and arty shots of trees, fronds, and misty grounds, Werther is deprived of its inherent passion. --Paula Nechak

Additional Features
This film of Massenet's opera stars Brigitte Fassbaender and was directed by Petr Weigl. Shot on location in Prague.

Customer Reviews

Highlights Disk
The singing of the two principles (especially Fassbaender) is good and the film looks pretty. But the director compresses the performance to feature film length by deleting every scene that does not involve the two principal singers. This is not a performance of "Werther"; it is a disk of highlights.

The film puts you in the period-appropriate mood
People who have issues with opera-films, where a film is superimposed on a recording will find them here (from lip-synching to the issue of "realism"). I feel this film does justice to this work. The film can only improve so much on the opera itself, and it's no news that "French opera had a bad century". There is little action in this opera, the heroes are trapped in a passive existence. It's mainly about a mood, and as such it is boring to watch on stage. The film brings out the melancholic-yearning-pining-wasting-away-with-grief state of mind of its protagonists. The outdoor shots in Prague are very beautiful and help to whisk the viewer away to a different era, very slow in pace and full of pathos. Dvorsky's and Fassbaender's French diction is good. Dvorsky has the perfect voice for the role. He puts to shame all post-war rivals in his big act III aria, and stacks up nicely even with Gigli. His top is free, the voice is full bodied and projects the drama; he maintains a sensual quality worthy of Di Stefano. I never noticed how beautiful Fassbaender's mezzo is; she sings very intelligently, giving a character to what is a rather limited role. There isn't a weak link in the Czech cast, and the conductor Libor Pesek paces the work with the right balance between the lyric and the dramatic. Audio quality is excellent, the video quality is better than VHS but isn't the best (it's not as good as the Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk film, that was shot 7 years later). Overall, this is a good way to access this opera, which otherwise could have been delegated to the status of a dead relic of a genre that went permanently out of fashion as soon as Puccini's sun rose.

Not Quite Massenet's "Werther"
The singers are splendid and the chosen settings are fine, but at least one-sixth of the opera is missing. The focus on the lovers is understandable in giving viewers the most memorable musical moments in the opera, but it violates the dramatic balance of the original opera. The love of Charlotte and Werher needs to be seen in the context of a small-city milieu (Wetzlar, Germany) where people drink, play cards, and celebrate 50th wedding anniversaries. We are shown the church and the townsfolk going and coming from the service, but we don't see the old pastor and wife who are being feted for their years of marriage. That's an important foil to the disfunctional marriage of Charlotte and Albert and to the cause of that marriage: Charlotte's promise to her dying mother to marry Albert. It's also a foil to the foolish passion of Werther and the trouble that he causes for Charlotte and Albert. In addition, the balance of the Christmas carol near the beginning of Act I (a rehearsal in June) with the performance a year and a half later when Werther lies dying of a bullet in his gut is lost because the children don't have their June rehearsal. No wonder that some of these reviewers think the opera slow-moving. Paradoxically, the opera would seem more lively if more lively scenes were included, even if the opera ran its full length.

It must also be said that, contrary to the unhistoric view of one reviewer, Massenet's opera was not a last gasp of romantic opera before Puccini, but a forward step away from the traditional 5-act French opera with its "de rigeur" ballet and 3-4 hour length. Massenet is looking forward to "Boheme" and "Butterfly," not back to "Faust" and "Le Prophete," for example. Nonetheless, I love what is here in the Weigl film and see it in light of my knowledge of the rest of the opera.

(Secondary complaints: (1) The costumes are 19th century, but the action is 18th century. (2) Werther fails to wear the costume specified by Goethe: blue jacket and yellow-buff trousers. That costume became favored by young would-be Werthers after the 1774 publication of the novel.)