The Boston Public Library’s Abbey Room filled with song Thursday night as cast members from Boston Lyric Opera’s upcoming production of “Werther” performed short excerpts from the opera for a packed audience.
“Werther,” an opera written by French composer Jules Massenet, first premiered in 1892 and is based on German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther.”
The opera follows the doomed love between a young poet named Werther and Charlotte, a woman engaged to another man. The story is told in flashbacks through a series of letters from Werther to one of his close friends.
Lacey Upton, BLO’s director of community engagement, led the evening with a Q&A session and a preview of the opera with renowned conductor David Angus. Angus, who has been BLO’s music director since 2010, also regularly works abroad on various opera productions and concerts.
“He knows so much about the music,” Upton said. “He’s just really passionate and excited, and I think that comes through to the audience. So it’s nice to have him in a setting like this, where he can really engage with people and take some questions and make it very intimate.”
Every year, Angus conducts a lesser-known opera at BLO in addition to the more popular productions.
“In that slot, we try to find things that people don’t know but we feel that they should know,” Angus said. “We think that they should be mainstream operas. So this should be one of the great, popular operas, and for some reason, it hasn’t caught on yet. We want to be part of a wave of people that are saying ‘Werther’ is one of the great operas, and it should be done all the time instead of doing ‘La Bohème’ again and again and again.”
Pianist Brett Hodgdon and vocalists Jon Jurgens and Sandra Piques Eddy, who performed as Werther and Charlotte, presented three selections from the opera during the interview.
Eddy, a Boston area native, attended The Boston Conservatory and received her master’s degree from Boston University.
“The fact that I get to sing this role at all, to me, is a huge gift,” Eddy said in a video interview posted by BLO last Wednesday. “I’m over the moon about it and the fact that it’s here, at home.”
Jurgens was filling in for fellow cast member Alex Richardson, who will play the lead role of Werther. Jurgens will play the character Schmidt, a friend of Charlotte’s father.
The preview also featured a slideshow with a preliminary look at the production’s innovative set and lighting as well as images of Massenet’s original score.
Angus studied the original score while working on his adaptation of “Werther” to bring it back to its purest form, he said during the Q&A session. As music director, Angus adapted the orchestral and vocal scores of the entire production and worked in tandem with the stage director, set designer and other members of the production staff.
“BLO is marvelous because the whole team is really good,” Angus said. “I really love coming here because they all think like I do, that it’s got to be interesting, new theater.”
Upton, who conducted the preview, has been working in opera for six years. He organizes opera-themed events for adult audiences, such as Thursday’s “Werther” preview, as well as educational programs for students.
“I also oversee our school partnerships,” Upton said. “We work with several K-12 schools and Boston Public Schools in the Greater Boston Area doing programs about opera.”
At the end of the program, audience members, including artist Roy Perkinson, were able to ask Angus questions.
“Oh, it was wonderful. We really enjoyed the performance,” said Perkinson, a 75-year-old artist from Framingham. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston University graduate, Perkinson said he attends BLO regularly.
He added, “We’ve heard David [Angus] before, and he’s so articulate, so passionate and so informative about his work in his role as music director there.”
“Werther” will premiere Friday, March 11 at Boston Lyric Opera.
