"I don't know if I'm awake or if I'm still dreaming" (Do those poets know how to make an entrance?)

Georges Thill (1897-1984)

With THE BAILIFF and all his children inside the house, as Papa continues to drill the six younger children in their "Noël" (in July!), WERTHER has appeared, led by a young guide, and verified that this is the home of the Bailiff. Alone, he penetrates farther into the courtyard and stops in front of the fountain.

WERTHER: I don't know if I'm awake or if I'm still dreaming.
Everything that surrounds me has the air of a paradise.
The wood sighs like an echoing harp.
A world reveals itself to my blown-away eyes.
O nature full of grace,
queen of time and space,
deign to welcome him who passes
and salutes you, humble mortal!
Mysterious silence! O solemn calm!
Everything attracts me and pleases me!
This wall, and this somber corner,
this limpid spring, and the freshness of the shade.
There's not a hedge, there's not a bush,
where a flower isn't enclosed, where a breeze doesn't pass.
O nature, intoxicate me with perfumes!
Mother eternally young, lovable, and pure!
And you, sun, come flood me with your rays!

Georges Thill (t), Werther; orchestra, Fernand Heurteur, cond. EMI (HMV), published Oct. 5, 1927

César Vezzani (t), Werther; with orchestra. EMI (Columbia), recorded Feb. 27, 1929

by Ken

This is one of the great operatic entrances, which Massenet has devised, and these Werthers -- whom I think we could describe without much fear of contradiction as the greatest French tenors of the 20th century -- sure know how to make that entrance sing. Note, though, what a different thing they make of it. Thill, master of making most everything he sang sound utterly and yet utterly unself-consciously, jaw-droppingly gorgeous and at the same time utterly, actively alive in the moment, is the purest of poets. Vezzani (1888-1951, seen at right) was a tenor of more heroic vocal bent (we should note that he was, properly speaking, Corsican, and though his mother had moved the family -- his father died before he was born -- to the French mainland when he was 12, Wikipedia describes him as, when he made his way to Paris at age 20, "speaking a poor French"), the poetic tingle he creates with his idyllic vision of the Bailiff's home is of a distinctly more energetic, physical sort.

In both cases, note the pleasure the singer enjoys and the communicative intent he shares in the singing of his language. The composers who have written great large-scale vocal works in French -- in addition to Massenet, I think (in no particular order) of Gounod, Saint-Saëns, Berlioz, Bizet, Meyerbeer -- share a skill and delight in showcasing their language, which calls not so much for "French singers" (after all, lots of French singers aren't much good at this either) as singers who have corresponding competence and relish in singing the language.

Werther's disposition to poetic rapture comes straight from his creator, Goethe, and while Massenet's idea of poetic raptures may not be exactly the same as Goethe's, they gave him an easy and darned effective entryway to the character -- everything Massenet's Werther sees is poetic, an elevated but not altogether practical way, as he never manages to understand in his overwrought existence, to go through one. In the last post, ("We're goig to be hearing Kurt Moll in his famously 'Unexpected French Role' -- so curtain up! "), we got as far as raising the curtain and watching the Bailiff -- in the heat of July -- preparing his six youngest children to sing a "Noël" -- before we wound up gulping down the first two-thirds or so (maybe three-fifths?) of Act I in a single swallow, or rather three single swallows, since we heard three performances of it.

If we're going to be sticklers, though, we've actually skipped over Werther's entrance proper. We'll come back to it, but meanwhile we have Georges and César to tide us over. And when we resume, we'll even have Georges with us, thanks to the complete recording of Werther he made just a few years later.

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