Carl Maria von WEBER (1786-1826)
Der Freischütz Op. 77 (1817-1821): romantic opera in three acts
Libretto by Johann Friedrich Kind
Ottokar, Adrian Eröd (baritone)
Cuno, Clemens Unterreiner (bass)
Agathe, Camilla Nylund (soprano)
Ännchen, Daniela Fally (soprano)
Caspar, Alan Held (bass)
Max, Andreas Schager (tenor)
Kilian, Gabriel Bermúdez (baritone)
Hermit, Albert Dohmen (bass)
Samiel, Hans Peter Kammerer (spoken role)
Chorus, Orchestra and Extras of the Wiener Staatsoper/Tomáš Netopil
Director Christian Räth
Sung in German
rec. live, June 2018, Wiener Staatsoper, Austria in
Picture format NTSC 16:9, Sound formats PCM stereo, DTS 5.0, Region code 0
Subtitles in German, English, French, Korean, Japanese
C MAJOR 760008 DVD [2 discs: 143 mins]
Der Freischütz is the classic work of early German romanticism in music. The story derives from an actual case in which a person was tried for casting magic bullets with the help of the devil. This was turned by Joseph August Apel into a ghost story, and then, by Friedrich Kind, into a libretto. As well as the magic bullets and the pact with the devil it now included the loving but weak-willed huntsman Max, his beloved Agathe, a test to win her by making a lucky shot, a stage villain Caspar, the sinister Wolf’s Glen and a mysterious hermit who resolves the issues and ensures a happy ending. Although this is a written story, it obviously draws on folklore motifs. As set by Weber it was a sensational success at its premiere in 1821 and for years was widely performed in Germany. Of late it has rather fallen out of favour, at least as far as stage productions are concerned, though there have been a number of audio recordings. It is a work very much of its time and one would expect a director to respect this.
That is not what happens here. The director Christian Räth has had the bright idea of making Max not a huntsman but a composer, suffering a writer’s block and unable to finish his opera. He (Räth that is, not Max) rewrites the libretto considerably to support this, though occasionally snatches of the original peep through. Mercifully, he does not rewrite the words Weber set to music. However, the action oscillates uneasily between the original, with its references to guns and hunting, and Rath’s version, in which Max wields a quill pen (without any ink) and a book with red binding, presumably a score. The opening sets the scene. While the overture is played, the curtain is up and Max is shuffling through great piles of single sheets of manuscript paper, trying to get them in the right order. (He should, of course, have remembered to number the pages.) The set looks like the inside of a railway station but from time to time there is some ramped seating which the chorus use. There is also a grand piano, which stays on the stage throughout and for which I feel rather sorry as it undergoes a good deal of rough treatment, including having a fire started inside it – but I shall come to that. The opening scene, in which we hear of Max’s bad luck in shooting and Kaspar’s provision of a magic bullet, is made almost incomprehensible because of the clash between the action as set by Weber and Kind and that presented by Räth.
The first half of the second act is more successful as that concerns Agathe and her cousin Ännchen, together with a portrait of her ancestor which has fallen from the wall. The Wolf’s Glen scene in which the pact with Samiel (the devil) is sealed and the magic bullets are cast is one of the most celebrated of gothic romantic scenes and had a great influence on Wagner. It can be thrilling, but here it fell completely flat, being played mostly on an almost bare stage and once again leaving the action in confusion. One better feature was the chorus of spirits, who have dark robes and bird heads. These had been preceded by another spirit, similar but with a red robe, which I thought impressive but I also realised it was not original, being borrowed from a picture by the surrealist Max Ernst, The Robing of the Bride. The magic bullets are replaced by more sheets of manuscript paper, which are each cast into a fire lit within the poor grand piano. I don’t know what this is supposed to mean in Räth’s version of the plot.
The entr’acte at the beginning of the third act is filled with another entirely invented scene in which Max and Caspar wrangle and Caspar fires shots into Max’s red score. The act proper begins with another scene between Agathe and Ännchen and again this is handled quite sensibly. The finale in which Max nearly injures Agathe but in fact mortally wounds Caspar is handled reasonably straight, up to the point when the hermit appears. This hermit descends from the roof in a giant chandelier and, after sorting out the action, hands out further sheets of music manuscript. There is more byplay with the red score and Max’s former rival comes forward with another red score which he sets on fire. Kind’s libretto is no literary masterpiece but it is, within its own terms, reasonably sensible and coherent. Räth’s farrago is neither.
The singers do their best with this. Andreas Schager, whose Max I rather liked in the second Janowski recording, repeats his unconfident and weak-willed interpretation but less subtly than for Janowski. His acting is less impressive, consisting mainly of hurling himself on the floor in moments of emotion. Camilla Nylund as Agathe has a lovely voice but it is not sufficiently flexible for her florid passages. This cannot be said for Daniela Fally as Ännchen, who tosses hers off and really makes something of her character. Alan Held as Caspar also appeared on the Janowski recording and here too makes a convincing stage villain. The other parts are well taken and the chorus sings with vigour. I take it that they sing from memory and the manuscript pages they are presented with are just props. The orchestra is the one we know better as the Vienna Philharmonic, here doing their day job in the opera house. Tomáš Netopil conducted with both subtlety and vigour, and, altogether, there was nothing much to grumble about in the purely musical side of things. I have no complaints about the sound or the picture quality.
Christian Räth has an established reputation as an opera director, and I have seen this production, in particular, praised in various places. To me it seemed one of the silliest I have ever seen, which obscured rather than presented a great work. Best avoided.
Stephen Barber
