Numerous recordings of the American Opera Society (I assembled a complete AOS archive that can be found here) and Opera Orchestra of New York have already been shared here, but today we have a rare one by Friends of French Opera: a 1965 Werther pairing Rita Gorr and Nicolai Gedda.

Massenet’s adaptation of Goethe’s novella had its US premiere at the Met in 1894 starring Emma Eames and Jean De Reszke. The opera had been missing from the company for fifty-five years when FFO brought together Gorr and Gedda at Carnegie Hall. The Met would finally revive Werther in 1971 as a vehicle for Franco Corelli who sang the role with the company twenty-three times. His casting probably didn’t go over well with Gedda who had shared Gounod’s Roméo with Corelli at the Met.

Although Gedda recorded the opera for EMI with Victoria de los Angeles, I don’t believe he sang the opera onstage until he pined for Joann Grillo at the Washington Opera in 1977. Do any Gedda aficionados know why the tenor came to Werther on stage so late—he was 52? And did he ever do the role again after DC?

Don’t we all anticipate a Met Werther revival in the near future with Benjamin Bernheim and Aigul Akhmetshina?

Massenet: Werther

Charlotte: Rita Gorr
Sophie: Anne Elgar
Werther: Nicolai Gedda
Albert: Theodor Uppman
Schmidt: Charles May
Johann: Daniel Ferro

Conductor: Robert Lawrence
Friends of French Opera, Carnegie Hall
14 November1965
In-house recording

FFO had gone to Gorr and Massenet previously for La Navarraise, and the year before Werther the organization led by Robert Lawrence offered La Juive by Halévy in what proved to be Richard Tucker’s only NYC appearance in his much-loved role of Eléazer. A recording of that evening co-starring Suzanne Sarroca and Norman Treigle can be heard here.

Another of Gorr’s greatest local successes also involved Massenet in concert: the legendary AOS Hérodiade with Régine Crespin, Guy Chauvet, and Robert Massard.

Werther fans (aren’t we all?) can also discover another version posted on Trove Thursday with Tatiana Troyanos and Alain Vanzo.

Werther can be downloaded by clicking on the icon of a cloud with an arrow pointing downward on the audio player above and the resulting mp3 file will appear in your download directory.

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