Product Overview
Massenet: Werther: Thomas Hampson - Susan Graham - Sandrine Piau 2 DVD Set / Concert performance recorded live at the Théâtre du Châtelet / Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse / Michel Plasson, conductor / DVD
Format: NTSC
Run time: 137 Minutes
UPC: 094635925791
- Label: EMI
- Barcode: 0094635925791
- Format: DVD
- Number of Discs: 2
- Genre: Opera
- Release Date: 3rd July 2006
A longtime champion of the baritone Werther, Thomas Hampson sang it to great acclaim at New York’s Met with Susan Graham in 1999; they recreate the roles on the Châtelet stage under the baton of Michel Plasson in a legendary concert performance from 2004 captured for DVD.
Following the early performances of Werther in 1892 Massenet seems to have felt uncomfortable with assigning Goethe’s morbid hero to a tenor and considered reworking the role for the great Verdi baritone Victor Maurel. In the event the role was adapted for the Italian baritone Mattia Battistini, who sang it throughout Europe during Massenet’s lifetime. No autograph manuscript survives, but a working score that belonged to Battistini has formed the basis for the version performed here, with the role not merely transposed but rewritten to suit the darker and more psychologically rich baritone voice.
Concert performance recorded live at the Théâtre du Châtelet
Paris, April 2004
Directed by Jean-Pierre Brossmann
Directed for television by Olivier Sim
La Maîtrise de Paris
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
Michel Plasson, conductor
- Chorus – La Maîtrise De Paris
- Chorus Master – Patrick Marco
- Conductor – Michel Plasson
- Directed By – Jean-Pierre Brossmann
- Libretto By – Georges Hartmann, Paul Milliet, Édouard Blau
- Orchestra – Orchestre National Du Capitole De Toulouse
- Text By – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Vocals [Albert] – Stéphane Degout
- Vocals [Charlotte] – Susan Graham
- Vocals [Johann] – Laurent Alvaro
- Vocals [Le Bailli] – René Schirrer
- Vocals [Schmidt] – François Piolino
- Vocals [Sophie] – Sandrine Piau
- Vocals [Werther] – Thomas Hampson
04/2004
