Why Are We Trying to Save the Bad Guy?

There’s an engaging legend from the Bavarian forests, in which they punish a bad guy by tying him to a live deer. The notion here is that the fellow cannot save himself until somebody shoots the deer, and if somebody tries to shoot the deer, they might accidentally shoot the man, too.

This situation is portrayed in the opening of a 2021 production of von Weber’s opera Der Freischütz, and of course a crack shot huntsman, the hero, takes down the deer and the miscreant is saved.

That’s fine, but it makes me wonder about the challenges of putting him onto the deer in the first place. I’m thinking, you’d have to catch a live deer, and hold him somehow while you did a very good job of tying this guy onto the deer’s back. Why not just shoot them both?

And the deer would have to be so big and strong that it could get up and run away with all that weight. This is not a horse we’re talking about. Therefore, with most deer, saving the guy would not be very difficult, really, because the overloaded deer might simply hunker down and wait it out – not run around wildly like other deer. You might not even need to shoot it; just walk over and untie the man.

The Free Shot

That said, the other forest legend portrayed in Der Freischütz is the one that gives the opera its name, and this one is a doozie. Let’s say you are not tied to a deer at all, but you are worried, for whatever reason, about your skill at shooting. So then you meet the devil, and he offers a novel solution: he’ll give you seven magic bullets, and six of them will always hit your mark, no matter how badly you aim. Good so far.

The seventh bullet, though, will not necessarily hit your target; it will hit whatever the devil decides he wants that bullet to hit. Could be a deer. Could be a man tied to a deer, or vice versa. Could be a young woman named Agathe that you were planning to marry. Could be some jerk called Kaspar that nobody likes, except the devil, so good for everyone. The point is, that seventh bullet – the “free shot” – you just don’t know which way it’s heading.

This, too, brings up a lot of questions, including one from J. Vara, which is: If you shoot that bullet from your yard in Vermont, does it have to hit something nearby, or could it find its way to, say, a passenger on an airplane over the Pacific Ocean?  This is not addressed by Carl Maria von Weber, although the opera does suggest another important answer: It is always the last bullet that is directed by the devil, not an earlier one. So, do what you want with the first six bullets, but you will be worried, the entire time, about that last one.

German Romantic Opera

Von Weber wrote several operas, but only three are still performed regularly (Freischütz, Euryanthe, and Oberon). He was composing in Germany about the same time that our guy Rossini was getting started in Italy, and von Weber’s music is every bit as enjoyable. He was following after Haydn and Mozart over in Austria, and he made the known world stand up and notice German opera.  (Von Weber kicked off the “German Romantic Opera” period, from a point squarely in opera’s “Classical Period”.  Go figure.)

What we have here with Der Freischütz is a real change of pace, story-wise. So many great operas come at you with a story of problematic or forbidden romance – it’s tempting to group and label them this way (opposing politics, mismatched social class, that lady is already spoken for, one of the pair has tuberculosis or is already in The Underworld, etc. etc.). But here is a story about the prince’s professional team of hunters, and how well they can shoot their guns.

In Der Freischütz, this fellow Max has to shoot very well indeed, or the dad won’t let Max marry his daughter. Of course it matters; Max loves Agathe, but he’s not so sure he can shoot his gun straight enough for her father. The pressure’s on.

How to win the lady?  Make a deal with the devil, perhaps, because then you will have at least six bullets that will do what you want. The last one’s the devil’s “free shot”. Worth a gamble – how bad could that be?

(Carl, how come Max didn’t go to the shooting contest with his first bullet loaded up in his gun?  That is, why did he have only the risky “free shot” left to use, when it really mattered?)

Trinidad

How everyone feels is very important in Freischütz. You can imagine that we have to see Max’s worry about missing the important shots and losing his girl; we have to understand Agathe’s concern about Max, and her trepidation when Max gives her a fake story about why he’s going into the fearsome Wolf’s Glen late at night (he’s going to help make devilish bullets, actually). Also, Agathe is subjected to some supernatural warnings in advance of the important gunshots, and we need to share her discomfort.

In this Berlin performance, the star is soprano Jeanine De Bique, the only singer from Trinidad whom I have ever heard of, aside from Nicki Minaj. (And I’m over 60, so I can debate whether or not my gal Nicki actually sings. Her “Do We Have a Problem?” smash would suggest “no”.)

De Bique does a top-notch job as Agathe; the notes are strong and perfect, and on top of that, her extraordinary facial expression and general movement delivers a lot of what this opera needs.

German Avant-Garde from Spain

Der Freischütz opened in 1821, at Berlin’s Konzerthaus, and everyone loved the now-famous overture, the Act 3 hunter’s chorus, and Agathe’s knockout soprano arias at the beginning of Act 2. Most of them found the “bullet factory” scene and its music delightfully frightening, as I did. There is a lot of very emotional, very touching music in this opera; this is another one where the music could stand on its own, were it not for so much spoken dialog.

(We cannot call that by its Italian name, so the Germans probably referred to the music-less speech as gesprocheneworte, or something smooth and poetic like that.)

For the 200th anniversary, the director Carlus Padrissa (of Barcelona’s La Fura dels Baus) did something extraordinary: he staged Freischütz once again at the Konzerthaus.  Challenging in 2021, because the venue is not an opera house; there’s no pit for the orchestra, for example. (We’re not sure how they arranged everybody in 1821.) 

Instead – and this is really worth watching – they took out the seats and performed the opera out on the main floor, with the orchestra up on the stage. Appropriate, because this one was conducted by Christoph Eschenbach, no less.

Sure, there was no audience to supply the applause, but they choreographed not only the singers, but also the minimalist sets, the multi-story backdrops, and the lighting, and filmed it from many angles.

The effect is enchanting. Let’s see more operas presented in a very large space, visible from all angles (including from above), and honoring a meaningful venue, for added historical impact.

I noticed that with cameras everywhere, they can use the third dimension more than on a stage, and it’s great: people are floating up and down, hanging in the air, whatever they need. I like the effect, with the religious Hermit solving everything from up on the ropes, in the last scene.

I just don’t understand what’s going on behind him while he pontificates. Look closely: there’s a woman swimming around in an aquarium, maybe clearing plastic debris from the sand. What’s that?  It’s a reference to ecosystem preservation, but that is a very weak theme in this production. I’d rather imagine it’s part of another terrifying Bavarian forest legend, so let’s work with that idea.