‘We started with Take That and worked backwards’: Irish National Opera’s contemporary Werther

“The man dies at the end,” says Sophie Motley. “It’s usually the woman that dies at the end, and usually horribly and usually connected to a man.” Motley is fluidly, almost breathlessly describing some of the features that initially drew her to Werther, Jules Massenet’s 1892 opera, which she is directing for Irish National Opera in a touring production that starts in Letterkenny on Saturday.

The man who dies – by suicide – is the man of the title, Werther. He is the young poet who falls in love with the unattainable Charlotte, promised to another. Originally, a century before the French composer took him up as the subject of an opera, Werther was the semi-autobiographical creation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in his 1774 novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, or Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers. The book was a literary sensation that turned the young writer into a celebrity.

In fact, the book’s immense popularity gave rise to a phenomenon variously called Werther Fever or Wertherism, and even to copycat suicides by distraught and lovesick young men. Some of them took the trouble to dress in Werther’s style and get hold of the same kinds of pistols that Werther used. It’s strange to think of this happening in the 18th century when it sounds so much like something of today, in the age of the internet and the widespread influence of social media.

It’s set in a rural community, and I grew up in one. And young men take their lives, still ... It’s something we need to be aware of and present, and present delicately. But also, present it. We can’t pretend it doesn’t exist

—  Sophie Motley

Motley is artistic director of the Everyman Theatre in Cork and a former staff director at English National Opera. This will be her Irish National Opera debut and, having been assistant director of a Massenet double bill at Wexford Festival Opera 10 years ago, her first time in the director’s chair for an opera by him.

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She is setting her production in rural Ireland. Had she considered sticking to Massenet’s Goethe-based setting, the small German village of Wetzlar in the 1780s? “Not really,” she says, before going somewhere unexpected. “Originally, it was the 1990s, because of Take That. We started there and worked backwards.”

She explains that she was a teenager when Robbie Williams left the boy band, in 1995, leading to its break-up a year later. She remembers inconsolable fans and the setting-up of counselling lines, primarily for young women. “Okay, it isn’t quite Wertherism,” says Motley, “but it’s still something that has happened, a celebrity or moment of fame that has led ordinary people to think about their own lives.”

And from there – backwards, as she says – it wasn’t long before the idea took hold of reimagining the story in rural Ireland. Specifically, the postwar Ireland of rural electrification in the 1940s and 1950s.

Sarah Bacon, the production’s set and costume designer, says it was very natural the way they arrived at this period. “It just seemed to fit very well,” she says, “with the characters and a time of big change in the country. You have the Albert character” – Charlotte’s betrothed – “this sort of upwardly mobile guy going around bringing electricity and canvassing. And you have the characters of Johann and Schmidt, who are the wiremen, if you like, who are actually physically bringing the electric power into these small communities. And then we have Werther himself – outsider and artist in this time of big technological change. He’s sort of outside all of this.”

“Doesn’t want any of it,” says Motley. She emphasises the importance of choosing a setting that makes sense. “I really don’t believe in shoehorning an opera into a time period. If late-19th-century Wetzlar had made more sense, we would have stepped down there. But I think what ignited my interest in the piece was the fact that it is a contemporary story.”

It’s worth noting that although the opera ends in suicide, what dominates the story is love, not death. And yet the presence of dark parallels across the centuries was another of the opera’s features that initially drew Motley. “It’s set in a rural community, she says, “and I grew up in one. And young men take their lives, still.”

She dismisses the idea that the presentation of suicide is too great a challenge. “There are still Werthers in the world. I know some of those Werthers, and I also know some of those Werthers who decided to use a shotgun. But it’s something we need to be aware of and present, and present delicately. But also, present it. Massenet writes it really well. We can’t pretend it doesn’t exist.”

At the opposite end of the spectrum there are wondrous aspects of life in rural communities that Motley and Bacon are keen to highlight, chief among them in this production being the impact of electrification.

“There’s something really exciting about that,” says Motley. “Sarah has found some really specific 1950s items, the first electric items. Displaying those feels really important as well.”

But beyond any curiosity value, the two have actually worked the advent of electricity into the structure of the plot. “In act one we see the household,” says Motley. “We see the housework that needs to be done, and we have a 1940s Acme mangle on stage, which is how clothes were dried.”

“And by act two,” Bacon says, “we have an electric spinner! Women are looking at it and going, Hmm, we hope!”

We are living in a country with the poesy of rural men. Werther is on the coat-tails of Patrick Kavanagh and Yeats

—  Sophie Motley

By act three, electricity has reduced Charlotte’s substantial domestic workload. “She has nothing to do but write letters to Werther,” says Motley, “and delve into a deep depression! So, again, every decision we’ve made seems to make complete sense in the opera.”

“We understand the poesy of rural men,” Motley continues. “We are living in a country with the poesy of rural men. Werther is on the coat-tails of Patrick Kavanagh. Patrick Kavanagh and Yeats. And that’s really exciting as well. Getting back to why it feels like the setting makes sense. I mean, I would love him” – the tenor Paride Cataldo, who plays Werther – “in that amazing Patrick Kavanagh knitwear. A cardigan ... ”

“We tried,” laughs Bacon. “But he wasn’t going for it.”

Irish National Opera’s production of Werther, with Paride Cataldo as Werther and Niamh O’Sullivan as Charlotte, opens at An Grianán Theatre, in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, on Saturday, April 22nd, and tours until Sunday, May 14th, visiting Navan, Galway, Limerick, Dundalk, Ennis, Cork, Waterford, Kilkenny and Dún Laoghaire