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Massenet - Werther |
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Features:
Description:
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
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