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Massenet’s take on Goethe’s blockbuster novella of unrequited love and suicide is handled with great subtlety by Christof Loy and Marc Leroy-Calatayud. Benjamin Bernheim and Marina Viotti lead a starry vocal cast.

The star tenor is clearly under the weather, but the young house-favourite mezzo shines in an impressive role debut in a revival of Benoît Jacquot's cinematic staging. 

John Doyle's emotional staging of Werther gets to the heart of Massenet's engagement with Goethe in memorable performances.      

In their role debuts, Tassis Christoyannis and Véronique Gens make for an incredible pair in this concert performance of Massenet's opera.

Enea Scala and Rihab Chaieb impress in a concert performance of Massenet's Werther in Ghent. 

Edward Gardner brings out the Wagner influence in Massenet's opulent score, Juan Diego Flórez give a persuasive performance in the title role.

The real triumph of Michael Fabiano's role debut as Werther lay in controlling the bold intensity of his voice in favour of a sweet and lower-key level of passion – a match for Massenet's frequent choice of the cello.

Willy Decker's enduring production gets smart treatment in a handsome revival.

Juan Diego Flórez stars as Goethe’s archetypal Romantic poet in Massenet's Werther in Zurich. 

From the moment he stepped on stage as our ill-fated title character, Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo seemed as if he may burst at the seams. 

Beczała's "Pourquoi me réveiller" stops the show in Willy Decker's thoughtful Werther at the Liceu, expertly conducted by Alain Altinoglu.

Juan Diego Flórez plays the role for the first time on stage and it's a vocal triumph 

Vittorio Grigolo and Joyce DiDonato live up to their starry reputations in the Royal Opera's latest revival of Massenet's tale of unrequited love and suicide.

This new production of Massenet’s Werther in Tokyo suffered multiple personnel changes even before it opened... 

A complex portrait of obsessive and destructive passion.

A superbly-sung title role from Ed Ballard is the best part of this otherwise patchy, well-sung but ultimately unmoving Werther from English Touring Opera. 

Aylin Bozok's modern and minimalist Werther, beautifully realised and superbly acted with the innovative addition of a silent character, is utterly heartbreaking.

Vittorio Grigolo and Ekaterina Gubanova star in Massenet's Werther in concert form with the Deutsche Oper Berlin. 

Goethe’s epistolary novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (“The Sorrows of Young Werther”) hit the 1774 zeitgeist not only because it brought back emotion to the rather sober Age of Enlightenment, but because the tragic title hero sports a multi-faceted character that lends itself to various interpretations and projections, therefore making it easy to feel sympathy or even partly identify with the

The world of opera can sometimes be hard for the newcomer to love as there are often fiendishly complicated and frequently unbelievable plots to get to grips with. Jules Massenet’s opera Werther is happily none of these: it is a straightforward story of unrequited love.

In Francisco Negrin’s production of Massenet’s Werther, currently at the Lyric Opera, the opera’s first scene appears through a semi-transparent screen upon which an image of a row of houses is projected. Then the screen rises, and we enter fully into the dream.

When I heard that Washington National Opera’s upcoming production of Jules Massenet’s romantic and beautifully tragic opera Werther would be set in the 20th century, I was intrigued.

Boy falls in love with girl. Girl marries another man. Boy kills himself. The plot of Massenet's Werther isn't exactly complex or taxing, but then, in all great stories, it's the way you tell them that counts.The story certainly worked for its author. When it was published in 1774, The Sorrows of Young Werther propelled the young Goethe to fame and caused a literary sensation.