Goethe’s birthday: Massimo Wertmüller reads from ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’

Lazarus Gottlieb Sichling nach August Friedrich Pecht, Werther, 1864, Museum Casa di Goethe Rome @ Enrico Fontolan, Bibliotheca Hertziana Max Planck Institute for Art History

‘This is my birthday, and early in the morning I received a packet from Albert. Upon opening it, I found one of the pink ribbons which Charlotte wore Lotte wore in her dress the first time I saw her, and which I had several times asked her to give me.’ Werther 28 August 1771*

As every year on 28 August, we cordially invite you to celebrate together the birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, but not only: his epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther in 2024 will be 250 years old since its first publication, which was followed by a resounding success that made it a bestseller. And the protagonist Werther has the same birthday as Goethe.

For the occasion, actor Massimo Wertmüller will perform selected excerpts from The Sorrows of Young Werther.

A new showcase dedicated to the figure of Werther in the museum’s permanent exhibition will also be inaugurated.

Massimo Wertmüller @ private

Massimo Wertmüller is an Italian actor and voice over actor, capable of ranging with ease from theatre to cinema, from radio to television and boasting over 30 years of intense activity.

Nephew of film director Lina Wertmüller, he has been in the film world since childhood and fell in love with it. His acting debut took place in the theatre, in 1976, with Luci di Bohème, presented at the Venice Biennale. He then attended the Laboratorio di Esercitazioni Sceniche directed by Gigi Proietti at the Brancaccio Theatre Rome in 1978. The same year he founded the comedy group La Zavorra with his colleagues Rodolfo Laganà, Giorgio Tirabassi, Paola Tiziana Cruciani, Shirin Sabet, Patrizia Loreti, Sandra Collodel and Silvio Vannucci; he made his film debut in the film La fine del mondo nel nostro solito letto in una notte piena di pioggia directed by Lina Wertmüller, with whom he collaborated numerous times. Starting in the 1980s, his film career took off and he was directed by directors such as Franco Rossetti, Carlo Vanzina, Sergio Corbucci, Ettore Scola, Luigi Magni, Luciano De Crescenzo, Alessandro D’Alatri, and Giovanni Veronesi, and he was chosen by his young colleagues such as Edoardo Leo, who directed him in Che vuoi che sia in 2016, and Francesco Mandelli for Appena un minuto in 2019. He also participates in numerous TV dramas and films.

*Quotation from: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: The Sorrows of Young Werther, translated by R.D. Boylan, Digibooks 2023, p. 45