 As Werther, José Carreras sang with an Italianate timbre, prodigious breath control and meticulous attention to every nuance of Massenet's markings, and also gave a heartfelt performance as an actor.He was "absolutely inside the role" of the moody, reckless writer, "rich and impassioned in 'O nature', properly distraught and urgent in 'J'aurais' [and] poetic in the Ossian stanzas".His version of the character was clearly superior to Placido Domingo's vehement but broad-brush portrait for Chailly, and the pointed but reedy-voiced and sometimes self-indulgent performance given by Alfredo Kraus for Plasson.