Jonas Kaufmann recounts Werther

Often considered the most personal and sensitive of Massenet’s works, Werther – whose libretto is freely inspired by The Sufferings of the Young Werther, Goethe’s epistolary novel – stands as one of the landmarks of 19th century French Romanticism. A melancholy work imbued with a resolutely tragic aspect sometimes bordering on the morbid.  In both Massenet’s work and Goethe’s novel, the young poet Werther is madly in love with Charlotte – who...