Werther Apk

Espousing the cause of the Institute for the Musical Heritage of Piedmont, over a ten-year period Opus 111 are issuing 50 discs of “Treasures of Piedmont”, mostly first recordings. The Academia Montis Regalis under Luigi Mangiocavallo has already opened our eyes and ears to orchestral music by Pugnani (10/96), perhaps the greatest violinist of his time. Now the same forces offer something well off the beaten track and only recently brought to light – a “musical translation” of Goethe’s novel Werther, which had been published a couple of decades previously. (The Baker-Slonimsky Dictionary, exceptionally, is totally wrong about this work.)

Werther is one of Rolando Villazón's signature roles and it's easy to see why; he brings both intensity and vulnerable sensitivity to the part of the anguished poet, and he's a terrifically nuanced singing actor. All of the elements of the live 2011 performance from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in fact, are so strong that this recording easily takes a place among the most effective and affecting accounts of the opera. Antonio Pappano, music director of the Royal Opera House, draws impassioned playing and sumptuous, sensual tone from the orchestra. The group responds beautifully to Pappano's subtly inflected and dramatically charged vision of the score.