Massenet: Werther

COMPOSERS: Massenet
LABELS: Virgin
ALBUM TITLE: Werther
WORKS: Werther
PERFORMER: Thomas Hampson, Susan Graham, Sandrin Piau, Stéphane Degout; Orchestre National du Capitale de Toulouse/Michel Plasson (concert performance, Paris, 2004)
CATALOGUE NO: 359 2579

PRESENTATION: ****







Despite the four-star ratings



below, this recording of a concert



performance of Massenet’s opera



given at the Paris Châtelet in April



2004 can only ever be a second best.



If opera-in-concert is a contradiction



in terms, opera-in-concert on DVD



is almost a reductio ad absurdum.



And this DVD certainly throws



up its comical moments, such as



when conductor Michel Plasson’s



commendable habit of mouthing the



words has him seemingly singing



Charlotte’s part in coy falsetto.



Otherwise it’s the usual worst of



both worlds, with singers earnestly



emoting, exchanging meaningful



moues behind the maestro’s back.



Thomas Hampson, of course,



is the raison d’ être for the whole



enterprise, since this is the so-called



(and unauthenticated) ‘Battistini



version’ of the score, with the original



lead tenor part simply shifted down



into a baritone range. But where



Battistini (as we know from his 78s)



was ardent, reckless, with an exciting upper extension to his open, vibrant



voice, Hampson (a classy Albert on



the EMI Alagna/Gheorghiu set) is at



once over-careful and overstretched,



compensating for his missing high



notes with hectoring overemphases.



The effect is not to lend added depths



of character but to turn Goethe’s



impulsive young poet into a morose



middle-aged depressive. Even so, it



might have made a nice enough set of



CDs. Mark Pappenheim