May 15, 18, 20, 22, 2022

Werther Jean-Francois Borras

Charlotte Héloïse Mas

Sophie Marie Lys

The Bailiff Vincent Le Texier

Albert Mikhail Timoshenko

Lausanne Chamber Orchestra

Conductor Laurent Campellone

Direction Vincent Boussard

Sets Vincent Lemaire

Costumes Christian Lacroix

Lights Nicolas Gilli

Lyric drama in four acts and five tableaux Libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the epistolary novel Les Souffrances du jeune Werther by Goethe

Léon Carvahlo, director of the Opéra-Comique in Paris, was frightened by the pistol shot indicated in the didascalies and gave up producing Massenet's opera, judging the subject to be "sad and uninteresting". It was in Switzerland, in Geneva, that the French premiere of the opera would finally take place. Using the resources of the great symphony orchestra, Massenet manages to create in Werther an intimate and penetrating atmosphere where romanticism reaches its climax through feelings stemming from the Sturm und Drang: the strong presence of nature unleashing the elements, melancholy and l ' perpetual dissatisfaction of the characters.