Werther vs. Werther: From print to the operatic stage

Jules Massenet re-imagined Goethe's novella Die Leiden des jungen Werthers as an opera. The audience gains great psychological intimacy with Goethe's Werther because of the Briefroman format, while the audience of Massenet's work is forced into the third person. This results in a fundamental change in how the audience relates to the two Werthers. This project strives to understand the relationship between the two works, and to demonstrate how both the media shift and the different movements affect the narrative.