Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Werther on ARTE TV

You can still see a pretty little opera by Shostakovich "Moscow Cheryomushki" (Москва Черемушки) produced by the Lyon Opera, and filmed past Tuesday, December 29 2009. It is free and it's on Arte Live Web (N.B. there're no subtitles).

On Tuesday, January 26, at 20:30 (C.E.T.), Arte TV will show "Werther", live from Opéra Bastille (ONP).

There are at least two reasons why programming "Werther" this year in ONP was... how should I put it?... was not a very clever thing to do:

1. Opéra Bastille hosted a BSO-Munich production of "Werther" in February and March 2009, which in spite of a starry cast -including R.Villazon, S.Graham, L.Tézier, A.Kucerova- was not a success [after only 3-4 shows (out of 10!) there were loads of free seats even though the most expensive tics were drastically slashed - by like 70%, 1 hour before each show]. There's no reason to believe that the audience will embrace "Werther" less than a year after its unmemorable run [ONP is already advertising 30-50% discount on seats in the 1st category]

2. This is not a new production! It is a revival of the Jacquot's "Werther", produced and run at Royal Opera House in 2005. To me it seems that the new intendant [Nicolas Joel] insisted on inserting this opera in the program 2009-2010, to emphasize the difference between him and his predecessor [Gerard Mortier]. The top national theater and one of the richest in the world deserves better than that...


Pic from The Guardian with Alvarez & Donose in Jacquot's Werther - ROH, 2005

HOWEVER, the cast will be very good:

Jonas Kaufmann Werther
Ludovic Tézier Albert
Sophie Koch Charlotte
Anne-Catherine Gillet Sophie

so I guess you should check out  the Arte website on January 26, at 20:30 (C.E.T.). Cheers!

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