Weber's Der Freischütz and the Magic Bullets
Berlin, 1821: in Der Freischütz Weber brings to the stage the Wolf's Glen, the Black Huntsman Samiel and the folk legend of the enchanted bullets.
Carl Maria von Weber presented at the Schauspielhaus in Berlin, on 18 June 1821, Der Freischütz, known in English as The Marksman or simply by its German title. The success was immediate and overwhelming. At a time when German theatres were dominated by Italian opera, Weber offered audiences a story of forests, huntsmen and demonic forces rooted in Germanic folklore. Many historians regard that evening as the birth of German Romantic opera, and the Wolf's Glen scene as one of the most famous moments in nineteenth-century musical theatre.
A Legend from the Book of Ghosts
The librettist Johann Friedrich Kind drew the story from a tale in the Gespensterbuch, the Book of Ghosts, a collection of supernatural stories published in 1810 by Johann August Apel and Friedrich Laun. The central theme is a belief widespread among German-speaking huntsmen: the existence of Freikugeln, enchanted bullets that unfailingly hit the target because they were cast with the devil's help.
According to the legend, whoever obtained these bullets made a risky pact. Of the seven received, six would strike where the marksman wished, but the seventh would go where the devil wished. This is a popular superstition documented in various forms in Central Europe, which Romantic theatre turned into dramatic material.
Max, Kaspar and the Black Huntsman
The young huntsman Max must win a shooting contest to gain the hand of Agathe, daughter of the head forester, and succession to his post. For days, however, his aim has been failing him. Kaspar, another huntsman, takes advantage of this: he has sold his soul to Samiel, the Black Huntsman, and is trying to offer him a victim in his place in order to extend the pact.
Samiel is a presence evoked more than shown. In the opera he is a speaking role, and Weber accompanies him with a diminished seventh chord in the low instruments, a suspended and ambiguous sonority that returns whenever the demon draws near. It is an early example of a motif tied to a character, a technique Wagner would develop extensively.
The Night of the Wolf's Glen
The finale of the second act takes place at midnight in the Wolfsschlucht, the Wolf's Glen, a wild valley lit by the moon. Kaspar summons Samiel and, with Max, casts the bullets while nature runs riot. Each new bullet brings an apparition: night birds, a wild hunt in the sky, wheels of fire, a storm. The scene is built as a melodrama, with spoken parts over a continuous orchestral fabric.
In the third act, during the contest, Max fires the seventh bullet at a dove pointed out by the prince. Agathe, who stands in that direction, falls in a faint, but she is protected by the wreath of blessed roses received from a hermit. The shot strikes Kaspar instead, who dies cursing heaven. The hermit intercedes for Max, who is granted a year's probation instead of exile.
Der Freischütz spread rapidly throughout Europe, sometimes in heavily altered versions. For the Paris Opéra, in 1841, Hector Berlioz composed recitatives to replace the spoken dialogue. Weber's forest, peopled with spirits and shadows, became the emblematic landscape of musical Romanticism. Wagner, who as a boy had heard it conducted by Weber himself, was deeply marked by it.