Saturday Night: Massenet's 'Werther' at San Francisco Opera

Cory Weaver

Alice Coote (Charlotte) and Ramon Vargas (Werther)

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Werther by Jules Massenet
War Memorial Opera House
September 18

Better than:  A chaotic production with mediocre singers

The new production of Jules Massenet's Werther making its debut at San Francisco Opera demonstrates the degree to which a successful opera depends on a constellation of elements coalescing just so. Despite outstanding performances from three key singers, an orchestra that masterfully rendered Massenet's complex score, and a taut if somewhat predictable story drawn from an iconic work of literature, the production felt less satisfying than these assets might indicate. For that, a good part of the blame rests on Louis Désiré's production design and Francisco Negrin's direction.

It's not that I reflexively take exception to less-than-traditional stagings of operas. This summer's Die Walküre, to name one recent example, was brilliant -- freeway overpass, aviator goggles, and all. But that production had an overall coherence of vision and purpose that this Werther lacked. Its set had elements that, on their own, were intriguing.  Unfortunately, there were far too many of them to coexist successfully -- particularly in service of a plot this straightforward, with a core cast this small. When intimacy was called for -- which was most of the time -- scattershot spectacle reigned. Watching this production felt like reading a book by a talented writer who badly needs a slash-and-burn editor to save the writing from its excesses and unevenness, thereby allowing the more effective innovations to shine.

What's worse, the set -- a multilevel mishmash of piled-up boxes concealing a staircase; a subterranean artists' pad; a stand of minimalist trees with a photographic image of leaves suspended in front of the branches; a five-foot-high metal wall encircling the rear and right side of the stage; a frequently used trapdoor; and intermittent backdrops of sketches of houses and red blobs -- palpably interfered with some of the opera's most powerful moments. When Werther (tenor Ramón Vargas, in top form) curses his unrequited love and foreshadows his suicide in a tremendous aria toward the end of the second act, it's just a distraction to show a video of his beloved twirling about behind him on a screen hidden in the wall of his room. As much as I tried to focus on Vargas, who was holding nothing back, my eyes kept wandering to the screen behind him. It should have been his moment; pity he had to compete with what looked like amateur close-up footage of a dance recital.