DomStufen-Festspiele in Erfurt 2015
Good and evil clash in Weber's romantic horror opera, Der Freischütz. The young hunter Max can only win the hand of his beloved Agathe by winning a test shooting competition. To achieve this goal, he puts everything on one card and engages in a dangerous game with the hunter Kaspar, who is in league with the devil. The devil persuades him to cast free bullets, "six of which will hit the target without fail, and the seventh of which belongs to the devil." Blinded by the prospect of an easy victory, Max ignores all warnings, not even Agathe, who is deeply worried about her lover, and sets out at night with Kaspar on the journey to the Wolf's Glen...
Regardless of later stylizations as a musical "national shrine," Weber introduced a new tone to the music with The Freischütz, which premiered in Berlin in 1821. Friedrich Kind's libretto, inspired by the spirit of literary gothic romanticism, particularly suited Weber's compositional intentions, allowing him to give each individual scene its own distinctive coloring, with "images of the uncanny being by far the predominant ones." (Weber) The new production on the cathedral steps in Erfurt was based on the version with recitatives—instead of the spoken dialogues of the original—that Hector Berlioz composed for the Parisian performances of the opera. The production by Guy Montavon, with sets by Peter Sykora, was a co-production with the Opéra de Nice (France).
Premiere / July 9, 2015
Cast
Ottokar Máté Sólyom-Nagy, Nils Stäfe | Cuno Vazgen Gazaryan, Gregor Loebel, Lukas Schmid | Agathe Eleonore Marguerre, Ilia Papandreou | Ännchen Daniela Gerstenmeyer, Romy Petrick | Caspar Juri Batukov, Andrey Maslakov | Max Bernhard Berchtold, Marc Heller | Ein Emerit Vazgen Gazaryan, Gregor Loebel, Lukas Schmid | Kilian Ks. Jörg Rathmann, Franz-Xaver Schlecht