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Der Freischütz
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Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz (J. 277, Op. 77 The Marksman or The Freeshooter) is a German opera with spoken dialogue in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind, based on a story by Johann August Apel and Friedrich Laun from their 1810 collection Gespensterbuch. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin. It is considered the first German Romantic opera.
The opera's plot is mainly based on Apel's tale "Der Freischütz" from the Gespensterbuch though the hermit, Kaspar and Ännchen are new to Kind's libretto. That Weber's tunes were just German folk music is a common misconception. Its unearthly portrayal of the supernatural in the famous Wolf's Glen scene has been described as "the most expressive rendering of the gruesome that is to be found in a musical score".
The reception of Der Freischütz surpassed Weber's own hopes and it quickly became an international success, with productions in Vienna the same year followed by Dresden, Leipzig, Hamburg, Munich, Karlsruhe, Königsberg, Prague, other German centres, Riga and Copenhagen. 1824 saw productions in four London theatres in four different adaptations, as well as an inadequate adaptation by François Castil-Blaze in French, named Robin des Bois at the Théâtre de l'Odéon.
In 1838 the then 18-year-old Jenny Lind scored her first great success performing the role of Agathe at the Royal Swedish Opera; she would then go on to become one of the greatest and most famous singers of the 19th Century.
To get round the Paris Opera's ban on spoken text,[citation needed] a version in French with recitatives was prepared in 1841 by Hector Berlioz – who greatly admired the opera and feared other arrangers might do worse[citation needed] – which incorporated his orchestration of Weber's Invitation to the Dance to serve as a ballet, another Paris Opera requirement.[citation needed] Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky criticised Berlioz's arrangement in the Bolshoi Theatre production of 1873 as "utterly incongruous", "tasteless" and "silly" because it inserted into the rustic opera an urban piece of music. In 1879 he again criticised a performance in Paris:
Der Freischütz afforded me great pleasure; in many places in the first act my eyes were moist with tears. In the second act Krauss pleased me greatly by her wonderful rendition of Agathe's aria. The Wolf's Glen was staged not at all as splendidly as I had expected. The third act was curious because of the French brazenness with which they took the liberty, on the one hand, of inserting Invitation à la valse with the most stupid dances, and, on the other, of cutting out the role of the hermit who appears at the end for the dénouement.
Berlioz's arrangement again underlay the production at the Paris Opéra-Comique in 2011. His orchestration of Invitation à la valse soon became a concert piece in its own right.
Weber's overture and the "Huntsmen's Chorus" from act 3 ("With princely enjoyment and manly employment") are often performed as concert pieces.
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Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz (J. 277, Op. 77 The Marksman or The Freeshooter) is a German opera with spoken dialogue in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind, based on a story by Johann August Apel and Friedrich Laun from their 1810 collection Gespensterbuch. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin. It is considered the first German Romantic opera.
The opera's plot is mainly based on Apel's tale "Der Freischütz" from the Gespensterbuch though the hermit, Kaspar and Ännchen are new to Kind's libretto. That Weber's tunes were just German folk music is a common misconception. Its unearthly portrayal of the supernatural in the famous Wolf's Glen scene has been described as "the most expressive rendering of the gruesome that is to be found in a musical score".
The reception of Der Freischütz surpassed Weber's own hopes and it quickly became an international success, with productions in Vienna the same year followed by Dresden, Leipzig, Hamburg, Munich, Karlsruhe, Königsberg, Prague, other German centres, Riga and Copenhagen. 1824 saw productions in four London theatres in four different adaptations, as well as an inadequate adaptation by François Castil-Blaze in French, named Robin des Bois at the Théâtre de l'Odéon.
In 1838 the then 18-year-old Jenny Lind scored her first great success performing the role of Agathe at the Royal Swedish Opera; she would then go on to become one of the greatest and most famous singers of the 19th Century.
To get round the Paris Opera's ban on spoken text,[citation needed] a version in French with recitatives was prepared in 1841 by Hector Berlioz – who greatly admired the opera and feared other arrangers might do worse[citation needed] – which incorporated his orchestration of Weber's Invitation to the Dance to serve as a ballet, another Paris Opera requirement.[citation needed] Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky criticised Berlioz's arrangement in the Bolshoi Theatre production of 1873 as "utterly incongruous", "tasteless" and "silly" because it inserted into the rustic opera an urban piece of music. In 1879 he again criticised a performance in Paris:
Der Freischütz afforded me great pleasure; in many places in the first act my eyes were moist with tears. In the second act Krauss pleased me greatly by her wonderful rendition of Agathe's aria. The Wolf's Glen was staged not at all as splendidly as I had expected. The third act was curious because of the French brazenness with which they took the liberty, on the one hand, of inserting Invitation à la valse with the most stupid dances, and, on the other, of cutting out the role of the hermit who appears at the end for the dénouement.
Berlioz's arrangement again underlay the production at the Paris Opéra-Comique in 2011. His orchestration of Invitation à la valse soon became a concert piece in its own right.
Weber's overture and the "Huntsmen's Chorus" from act 3 ("With princely enjoyment and manly employment") are often performed as concert pieces.
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