October 14 & 16, 2018

Weber’s 1821 opera, Der Freischütz, quickly became the standard that defined German Romantic Opera. Supernatural events, a rural landscape (the forest), religiosity, an alienated hero, and, above all, redemptive love are its primary ingredients. It is safe to say that without Weber’s model, the operatic achievements of Richard Wagner later in the nineteenth century would have been unthinkable. Beloved by the German people—but not to the exclusion of other nationalities—Der Freischütz is a work whose plot (based on Germanic folklore) and musical attributes were admired by not only Wagner, but also by the Frenchman Berlioz and many others.

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