5 Things to Know about WERTHER

A sumptuous musical rendering of dangerous obsession and impossible love, Jules Massenet’s Werther is returning to the COC for the first time in 30 years in an exciting original production.

The piece is a rare operatic gem known for its tragic storyline based on Goethe’s literary masterpiece.

Read on to learn more about the origins, influences, and defining characteristics of this tale of tortured passion, and be sure to join us when the curtain rises on an all-new Werther in Spring 2026.

Literary inspirations

Massenet based his opera on the best-selling The Sorrows of Young Werther, a 1774 epistolary novel by German literary giant Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In 1772, while still an unknown poet planning to study law, Goethe had made the acquaintance of two court secretaries, Christian Kestner and Karl Jerusalem, as well as Kestner’s fiancee, Charlotte Buff. Their friendship intensified to the point that Goethe eventually felt compelled to move to another town. A month later, in the midst of an affair with a married woman, Karl Jerusalem shot himself—unwittingly sowing the seeds for a tale that would become a cultural sensation.

Eau de Werther

The Sorrows of Young Werther soon became an international literary phenomenon and emblem of the Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress”) movement, giving rise to an explosion of cultural byproducts that ranged from women’s perfume (“Eau de Werther”) to Chinese tea cups decorated with Werther’s image—while fashion-forward young men began to dress in the blue coat and yellow waistcoat associated with the tragic hero. Not everyone was a fan, though: clerics disapproved of the novel’s adulterous love affair and Werther’s death by suicide, which was believed to have inspired several imitators (fears for public safety led the city of Leipzig to enact a complete ban on the book).

Widening the lens

Massenet’s opera draws heavily on the story of a young man who decides his only recourse in the face of impossible love is death. However, his version breaks audiences out of Werther's personal experience of love and heartbreak and situates his character in a social context—with Werther and Charlotte sharing several powerful duets that highlight their struggle to acknowledge an impossible love that flies in the face of social convention, and Werther’s aria, “Pourquoi me réveiller, ô souffle du printemps?” (“Why awaken me, O breath of spring?”), now a standard of the operatic tenor repertoire.

“Where words leave off, music begins”

A leading composer of the Belle Époque, Massenet had risen to stardom with the premiere of Manon in 1884. First performed on February 16, 1892 at the Court Opera in Vienna (today the Vienna State Opera), Werther was not immediately greeted with the same enthusiasm. It would only be after a revival by the Opéra-Comique in 1902 that the work became widely popular—and ultimately canonized as one of the major works of the French Romantic period. As one Le Monde reviewer raved, “Goethe has said somewhere that ‘where words leave off, music begins’; in the score of Werther words and music are so closely allied as to seem born of one and the same inspiration.”

Musical novelties

An ardent admirer of Wagner, Massenet experimented with several musical novelties in this opera, such as adding the saxophone as a solo instrument to the orchestration. In 1902, he also adjusted the role of Werther—originally composed for a tenor—so that it could be sung by baritone Mattia Battistini in St. Petersburg. This version, which only altered the vocal line of one character, is sometimes performed to this day—although in our production, we’re delighted to have the role of Werther sung by acclaimed American tenor Russell Thomas.