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Scotch Corner

James Macpherson, Massenet, Werther and Ossian – a Scotch Myth

This Scottish operatic link is a peculiar one, and stems from Goethe’s enthusiasm for a piece of literary deception by a wily Scotsman. It links Massenet’s opera Werther with a completely non-existent but extremely influential ancient Scottish bard – Ossian. The Ossian fraud fooled many people for many years (including Napoleon, who was fascinated by...

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Opera Kitchen

French crayfish in Massenet’s Werther

Jules Massenet’s opera Werther is based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Goethe, and although there are many differences between the two works, Massenet’s opera does maintain all the tension of the original, leading up to the dramatic suicide of the hero. The story of the terrible consequences which Goethe’s novel had in its own day (it was written in 1774), and the story of how Massenet came to write an operatic version of it (not to mention the many operas which are based on it but which bear little resemblance to it whatsoever) are all told in other OperaStory articles. What concerns us in the Opera Kitchen is the edible element of the opera, and the edible element in Werther are the huge crayfish which are sold at The Golden Grape on one day of the week – and by all accounts, they are ‘as fat as your arm’.

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