About the work
Verter is a one-act comic opera (farsa) by Johann Simon Mayr to a libretto by Simeone Antonio Sografi, based on the first Italian translation (Poschiavo, 1782) of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. Mayr likely composed it between 1794 and 1797 in Venice; the manuscript was long considered lost and only rediscovered in 1994 in a Milan conservatory archive, where Mayr's name appears twice.
Plot
Unlike Goethe's novel, the plot ends happily: Carlotta is married to Alberto and has two children. Both the young painter Verter and the tutor Giorgio fall in love with her, but Giorgio's scheming is exposed and he is forced to leave the house.
Cultural significance
Musicological study — including stylistic echoes of Mozart's The Magic Flute — is cited as evidence for Mayr's authorship. Its actual stage premiere, however, came more than two centuries after it was written: the farsa was first performed on 20 and 25 July 2001 at the Rossini in Wildbad festival.