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''Werther'' is an opera (''drame lyrique'') in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann (who used the pseudonym Henri Grémont). It is loosely based on the German epistolary novel ''The Sorrows of Young Werther'' by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which was based both on fact and on Goethe's own early life. Earlier examples of operas using the story were made by Kreutzer (1792) and Pucitta (1802).〔Milnes R. Werther. In: ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera''. Macmillan, London and New York, 1997.〕 ==Performance history== Massenet started composing Werther in 1885, completing it in 1887. He submitted it to Leon Carvalho, the director of the Paris Opéra-Comique, that year, but Carvalho declined to accept it on the grounds that the scenario was too serious.〔 With the disruption of the fire at the Opéra-Comique and Massenet's work on other operatic projects (especially ''Esclarmonde''), it was put to one side, until the Vienna Opera, pleased with the success of ''Manon'', asked the composer for a new work. ''Werther'' received its premiere on 16 February 1892 (in a German version translated by Max Kalbeck) at the Imperial Theatre Hofoper in Vienna.〔 The French-language premiere followed in Geneva on 27 December 1892.〔Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed., 1954〕 The first performance in France was given by the Opéra-Comique at the Théâtre Lyrique on the Place du Châtelet in Paris on 16 January 1893, with Marie Delna as Charlotte and Guillaume Ibos in the title role, conducted by Jules Danbé, but was not immediately successful.〔 ''Werther'' entered the repertoire at the Opéra-Comique in 1903 in a production supervised by Albert Carré,〔 and over the next half-century the opera was performed over 1,100 times there, Léon Beyle becoming a distinguished interpreter of Werther.〔Wolff, Stéphane. ''Un demi-siècle d'Opéra-Comique (1900–1950).'' André Bonne, Paris, 1953.〕 The United States premiere with the Metropolitan Opera took place in Chicago on 29 March 1894 and then in the company's main house in New York City three weeks later.〔(MetOpera database )〕 The UK premiere was a one-off performance at Covent Garden, London, on 11 June 1894〔 with Emma Eames as Charlotte, Sigrid Arnoldson as Sophie, and Jean de Reszke in the title role. ''Werther'' is still regularly performed around the world and has been recorded many times. Although the role of Werther was written for a tenor, Massenet adjusted it for a baritone, when Mattia Battistini sang it in Saint Petersburg in 1902. It is very occasionally performed in this version, in which the changes affect only the vocal line for the title character. There are no other changes to the words, to the lines for other characters, or to the orchestration. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Werther」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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