ABOUT “WERTHER”
Tbilisi Opera and Ballet State Theatre
December 2018

I can’t remember a period of my life that I didn’t make dresses or costumes. From an early age the passion for costumes led me to the theatre, inside this magical wold full of tutus, historical costumes and incredible stories. I grow up inside the theatre as a professional dancer for ten years, then as an opera singer and from 2015 as a costume designer.

Ballets like “Divertimenti” for Petit Ballet de Barcelona, Operas like “Carmen” at Sejong Center for the Performing Arts (South Korea), “Traviata” and “Simon Boccanegra” at Tbilisi Opera and Ballet State Theatre are part of my career.
I’m very happy and honored to come back to Tbilisi with this master piece of the French repertoire. Massenet’s score is really amazing. When you hear this music, you can feel all the pain, love, drama and suffering of Werther, the war inside Charlotte, Albert’s evolution or Sophie’s innocence. He show note by note all the details of this romantic and dramatic story.

As always I started from the music, usually I like to know what I feel without any information, if I didn’t know this opera. Then for me is very important to read the book, the outstanding Goethe’s letters, part unforgettable of the classic literature, then the libretto, history books about this period, patterns books for historical costumes and all the information that I can find about it.

In this opera I want to show with the costumes all the evolution of the roles and how they change. For me was very interesting to put attention in the differences between the Goethe’s and Massenet’s roles. For example, Albert in the book is a friend of Werther, in Massenet’s score this role becomes an a rival and the moments that they are together on the stage are more strong and tense. I put all this tension in Albert’s costumes to show the differences between the characters in status, level and emotions during the opera.

Also and as always for all my costumes, I was very accurate with all details, the period costume’s construction and the stile, choosing high quality materials and accessories. The sets by Emmanuelle Favre are fascinating and give my the way to imagine all the fabrics and forms. We have the privilege to have Joseph Franconi Lee as a director, he knows everything about this opera and it’s wonderful to have the possibility to work with him. The cast for this production is really amazing, incredible singers with marvelous voices and talent. Work in Tbilisi give me a lot of emotions and this city became my second home in my heart.

All together with passion, love and a lot of work are trying to put all the emotion that Massenet wrote on the stage, and to be at the service of the music and this amazing story.

By Ester Martin