The climactic scene in Massenet's opera Werther – as in Goethe's novella – occurs when Werther reads a poem by Ossian. The air resembles a German lied, with a rippling harp accompaniment that may be a reference to other Ossianic settings. Steven Huebner has suggested that the lied reference is meant to create a sense of German local colour in the opera. However, little work has been done to explain why Massenet would have chosen to set an Ossianic text in the style of a German lied.The current article addresses this question by considering the references to specific German lieder by Schumann and Schubert heard by early critics in the Ossian reading. The subsequent discussion explores the French reception of German lieder and Massenet's personal knowledge of Schubert and Schumann's music. These references to Schumann, Schubert and Ossian expose a complex set of intertextual relationships between Massenet's opera and other Ossianic music, the characters in Massenet's opera and their milieu, and Massenet's depiction of German music and culture.Despite Huebner's well-chosen criticisms of Massenet's depiction of the German setting, I argue that the lied and its harp accompaniment are dramatically meaningful gestures that highlight Werther's Ossianic character arc throughout the opera, hinting at his sentimentality, weakness, and non-normative masculinity in relation to nineteenth-century gender stereotypes. This interpretation, following Massenet's own account of the opera's genesis, prioritizes the Ossian reading as the crux of the drama. The resulting analysis demonstrates the audible influence of Schumann and Schubert on Werther, and Massenet's musical approach to the Ossianic tropes of nature, decay and fate.

中文翻译：

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马斯奈《维特》中的竖琴、谎言和奥西尼亚叙事

马斯奈歌剧的高潮场景维特——就像在歌德的中篇小说中一样——发生在维特朗读奥西安的一首诗时。空气像德国的谎言，伴随着荡漾的竖琴伴奏，可能是对其他 Ossianic 设置的参考。史蒂文·休布纳建议说谎的参考是为了在歌剧中营造一种德国本土色彩的感觉。然而，几乎没有做任何工作来解释为什么马斯内会选择以德国谎言的风格设置奥西尼亚语文本。当前的文章通过考虑早期评论家所听到的舒曼和舒伯特对特定德国歌曲的引用来解决这个问题。奥西读物。随后的讨论探讨了法国对德国歌曲的接受以及马塞内对舒伯特和舒曼音乐的个人了解。这些对舒曼的引用，舒伯特和奥西安揭露了马斯奈的歌剧与其他奥赛音乐、马斯奈歌剧中的人物及其环境以及马斯奈对德国音乐和文化的描绘之间的一套复杂的互文关系。我认为，谎言及其竖琴伴奏是非常有意义的姿态，突出了维特在整部歌剧中的奥西尼亚角色弧，暗示了他与 19 世纪性别刻板印象相关的多愁善感、软弱和非规范的阳刚之气。这种解释遵循马斯奈自己对歌剧起源的描述，将奥西斯阅读作为戏剧的关键。结果分析证明了舒曼和舒伯特对维特的听觉影响，