' (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".

Performance history

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, 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 – which incorporated his orchestration of Weber's Invitation to the Dance to serve as a ballet, another Paris Opera requirement. 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:

<blockquote>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.</blockquote>

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.

Roles

{| class="wikitable"

|+

!Role

!Voice type

|-

|Samiel, the 'Black Huntsman

|spoken

|Joseph Hillebrand

|-

|Hermit

|bass

|Johann Georg Gern

|-

|Kilian, a wealthy peasant

|baritone

|August Wiedemann

|-

|Four bridesmaids

|soprano

|Henriette Reinwald etc.

|-

|colspan=3|Hunters, peasants, spirits, attendants

|}

Synopsis

thumb|upright=1.3|An 1822 illustration of Der Freischütz depicting the opening scene with Max and Kilian

:Place: Bohemia

:Time: shortly after the end of the Thirty Years' War<br>Cat: 8556882

|-

|2010

|Juliane Banse,<br />Regula Mühlemann,<br />Michael König,<br />Michael Volle

|Daniel Harding,<br />London Symphony Orchestra and Berlin Radio Choir

|Hunter's Bride<br>DVD: Constantin Film<br>Cat: HC087848<br />Blu-ray: Arthaus Musik

|-

|2012

|Christine Brewer,<br>Sally Matthews,<br>Simon O'Neill,<br>Lars Woldt

|Sir Colin Davis,<br />London Symphony Orchestra and London Symphony Chorus,<br>(Recording of a live concert performance at the Barbican in London on 21 April)

|CD: LSO Live<br>Cat: 0726

|-

|2019

||Lise Davidsen, <br/>Sofia Fomina,<br/>Andreas Schager,<br>Alan Held

|Marek Janowski,<br/>MDR Rundfunkchor, Leipzig, Frankfurt Radio Symphony

|CD: Pentatone <br> Cat: PTC5186788

|}

Derivative works

Classical music

  • Franz Liszt wrote a piano transcription of the overture in 1846 (S.575).
  • In 2021, the Leipzig-based publisher Edition Peters released a chamber ensemble arrangement (for 9 instruments) of the overture to Der Freischütz, arranged by Germán García Vargas.
  • wrote an introduction and variations on a theme from Der Freischütz for guitar in c. 1851.
  • Stephen Heller composed 4 piano études on the Freischütz themes (Op. 127)
  • Sigismond Thalberg included an arrangement of the duet "Schelm, halt fest!" (Ännchen and Agathe) in his L'art du chant appliqué au piano (Op.70).

Fine arts

  • Austrian artist Matthias Laurenz Gräff painted a triptych Der Freischütz – Eros, Pathos, Agape in his series Garser Wein 2014. Further information Commons:Category:Garser Wein.

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

  • .

Further reading

  • Singleton, Esther (1899). "Der Freischütz", A Guide to the Opera, pp.&nbsp;77–90. Dodd, Mead & Company
  • Libretto, opera-guide.ch (in German)
  • English libretto, opera-arias.com
  • Recordings of Der Freischütz, Creative Commons-licensed in Ogg and MP3 formats
  • Der Freischütz (The Marksman) , details and synopsis, Naxos Records
  • Discography, opera.stanford.edu