One of the times I saw John Williams in concert, he conducted some selections from his then recently-composed score to the Disney “Star Wars” revival, “The Force Awakens.” In between numbers, he remarked to the audience that he would continue to write music for the next installment, “The Last Jedi.” When the applause subsided, he followed it up with a quip, something along the lines of he really didn’t want to do it; but he really didn’t want anybody ELSE to do it either.
I remembered that on Thursday night when I was at Carnegie Hall to hear a concert performance of Hector Berlioz’s edition of Carl Maria von Weber’s “Der Freischütz.”
Weber’s magnum opus, which took Europe by storm following its premiere in 1821, ignited a bold, new, Romantic era of lurid sensation in the opera house. German opera, in particular, would never be the same. The scenario and music reveled in an idealized past of roistering huntsmen and folk-like melodies, but also pushed into the darker territories of dread, emotional turmoil, and pacts with the Devil. The work traveled well, to New York, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, Sydney – everywhere it seems except Paris.
Despite its near-universal appeal, “Freischütz” was dismissed by effete Parisians as being unsuited to their traditions. The Paris Opera forbade spoken dialogue, and the audience would have been scandalized had there not been a ballet in one of the later acts (a traditional diversion for aristocratic gentlemen who preferred to linger over supper, before settling into their boxes to ogle their mistresses among the dancers). As late as 1861, there were shouts of disdain when Wagner gave a big eff you to the French by placing his ballet at the beginning of “Tannhäuser.” When the second performance was disrupted by literal dog whistles, Wagner cancelled the rest of the run. If “Freischütz” were ever going to play Paris, it would require a major touch-up. And the Opera planned to do just that.
Actually, it had been attempted once before at a rival house, the Théâtre de l’Odéon, in 1824, when Henri Castil-Blaze exercised a heavy hand in editing Weber’s original, cutting, reordering material, and even adapting vocal lines for a production retitled “Robin des Bois” – the French name for “Robin Hood,” even though the opera has nothing at all to do with the English folk hero.
Berlioz was wild for “Freischütz,” to the extent that he lauded it in his memoirs and elsewhere as among his favorite operas. Unsurprisingly, he came to regard the Castil-Blaze version as an “insulting travesty, hacked and mutilated,” although enough of Weber’s magic remained, apparently, that he was compelled to attend several performances. Previously his operatic paragons had been the high-minded works of Christoph Willibald Gluck and Gaspare Spontini. Weber’s fantastic drama would have a profound influence on Berlioz’s subsequent development.
Berlioz in 1845
When Berlioz was approached by the Paris Opera to create his own edition of “Freischütz” (as “Le Freyschutz”) in 1841, he was not enthusiastic. Like Williams, who really didn’t want to do the next “Star Wars” movie, he feared what somebody else – somebody with less talent, less refinement, and less investment in the source material – might do with it. So Berlioz determined to commit to the project and worked hard to honor Weber’s legacy and actually make it good. And quite frankly, his version of the opera comes off better than anyone could ever hope.
The title always sounds awkward in English. It’s often translated as “The Free-Shooter.” And the construction of the piece is about as clunky as the title would have you to expect. The work is not through-sung in the manner of a traditional opera, but rather it is a singspiel – you know, like Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” – with the arias, ensembles, and choruses linked by spoken dialogue. This has often posed a problem in recordings, as often it requires a major suspension of disbelief on a listener’s part to accept the actors who are assigned the spoken parts as analogous to the characters portrayed by singers of the roles. Also, for anyone who is not fluent in German, the spoken passages can very quickly wear out their welcome.
So perhaps it is unsurprising – although it was a delightful surprise to me – that I actually found myself enjoying Berlioz’s edition more than Weber’s original. From a musical standpoint, it just goes down a whole lot easier, since Berlioz takes all those tiresome spoken lines and lends them musical interest by tastefully scoring them as recitative. “Der Freischütz” gains, therefore, from an unbroken musical flow. This might be considered blasphemous in some circles – no doubt German speakers will find more sustained interest in Weber’s original design – and for sure, there is a kind of bizarre alchemy that takes place if you allow yourself to think about the hybrid analytically. The sung French subtly changes the character of piece. The sound of the vocal lines is softened, and the text flows more mellifluously than it does when spiked with the harder, more intrusive consonants of German. And without drawing attention from Weber’s arias, Berlioz sustains and even enhances the atmosphere and dramatic momentum through his subtle artistry.
In terms of the performance itself, listening to the execution of the overture on Thursday, I was reminded of Sir Thomas Beecham’s “two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a damn what goes on in between.” It would have helped had the musicians been able to play with more commitment and intensity, to get the evening off to a good start. The horn passages were not particularly impressive, which was worrisome for an opera with plenty of exposed horn-playing, since after all it is brimming with huntsmen.
Happily, whatever sense of foreboding instilled by the playing in the overture was dispelled immediately, as the horns were on point for the rest of the night. Furthermore, the performance ended strongly, with Leon Botstein and his musicians, especially the always superb Bard Festival Chorale (prepared by James Bagwell), tapped unsuspected reserves for the work’s Mozartian finale, which played like Sarastro’s grandest apotheosis ever. I didn’t see anything like it coming. So yes, it sent me out of the hall feeling uplifted and happy.
The team of vocal soloists assembled for the evening included some familiar faces, from both American Symphony Orchestra and Bard Festival concerts. (Botstein directs both.) While I had my personal preferences, in terms of timbre, intensity, and projection, each had their individual strengths. The singers were mostly well-matched, but I found tenor Freddie Ballentine, in the lead role of Max, at his strongest in moments like his Act II trio, in which he blended sensitively his female costars.
On a purely charismatic level, soprano Cadie Bryan – who sang Milada in last year’s production of Smetana’s “Dalibor” at Bard and here filled the supporting role of Annette – upstaged soprano Nicole Chevalier as her anguished cousin Agathe, whose character, let’s face it, is a real Debbie Downer. This despite the fact that Chevalier sang her arias beautifully.
I’ve seen bass-baritone Alfred Walker a number of times, and he’s always very good – he had a meaty role as Saint-Saëns’ Henri VIII at Bard and also sang the King in “Dalibor” – but here, as Max’s duplicitous rival, he’s given less to do, especially since the opera in this performance was not staged. Essentially, the singers stood, sang, and emoted at their music stands.
Naturally, where any concert performance of “Freischütz” suffers the most is in the celebrated Wolf’s Glen sequence, with its creepy midnight rendezvous to barter souls for magic bullets. There should be specters, thunder and lightning, owls roosting in withered tress, and an all-important human skull. Thursday night’s audience pieced out these imperfections with their thoughts, while one of the choristers (unidentified in the program, alas) offered diabolical interjections from the balcony as Satanic Samiel, the Black Huntsman.
Among the supporting singers, baritone Adam Partridge as Kilian, a good-natured peasant who outshoots Max in the contest of the opera’s first act, had a great voice and a commanding presence, and bass Philip Cokorinos, a familiar presence, here as Kuono, head gamekeeper and Agathe’s father, sang his part with satisfying resonance.
The whole plot hinges on Max winning a shooting contest so that he can attain job security (as worthy successor to Kuono) and Agathe’s hand in marriage. His poor luck at the start leaves him open to the temptations of Gaspar, who himself has sold his soul to Samiel, the Dark Huntsman, for some magic bullets. Gaspar hopes to delay his hour of reckoning by luring Max to damnation and Agathe along with him.
While bass-baritone Jason Zacher, who towered physically over the rest of the cast as the Hermit, really didn’t have all that much to do – he only really gets to sing at the end – this deus ex machina character always amuses me in his earnestness. What I would pay to hear him break character and cry, “Wait! I was going to make espresso!”
For the ballet music, Berlioz orchestrated Weber’s piano piece “Invitation to the Dance” – which, in its new guise, became a breakout hit, even if, technically, it seems as out-of-place as the Viennese waltz interlude Erich Wolfgang Korngold employs during the rustic banquet in “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” A universal truth: for as long as Berlioz’s arrangement has been around, and for as frequently as it’s been played, people still applaud before the quiet cello denouement.
The opera’s performance, taken as a whole, was a satisfying one, and as always, Botstein and his players should be proud to have shared yet another unusual, not insignificant, indeed revelatory work with such a large audience. (The concert was well attended.)
As is often the case, Botstein, who has been music director of the American Symphony Orchestra for 34 years, delivered a pre-concert talk an hour before the performance. As president of Bard College for over half a century, he has long been a master in the art of public speaking. He imparts his information articulately and with impressive fluency, and an off-handedness that belies the care and lucidity of his thought. Key to his success as a communicator, I think, is that he always somehow manages to keep the intellectual balancing act both conversational and engaging. He also has a wry sense of humor, and he’s not afraid to use it.
When he returned to the stage for the performance itself, the audience received him warmly. There were no boos or catcalls or demonstrations – no indication at all of the emotional turbulence that has roiled Bard campus since his name has been linked with that of Jeffrey Epstein.
In a nutshell, Botstein, as college president and its most prominent fundraiser, did everything he could to court Epstein, after the latter’s unsolicited donation of $75,000 to the institution. Although Botstein himself has not been accused of any criminal activity, his allegedly having turned a blind eye to Epstein’s six-years-earlier conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor has blown up at Bard since the release of the Epstein files, with outraged activists calling for him to step down. Botstein, who is pushing 80, but remains in good physical and mental health, has talked about retirement, with the possibility of him staying on to teach and conduct Bard’s graduate ensemble, The Orchestra Now. An independent investigation is ongoing.
Botstein is scheduled to conduct a staged production of Richard Strauss’ “Die ägyptische Helena,” or “The Egyptian Helen,” at the school’s annual arts festival, Bard SummerScape, July 24-August 2. Presumably, he will then return to preside over this year’s Bard Music Festival, “Mozart and His World,” August 7-16, although the marketing so far has been very quiet regarding his hopeful participation.
Botstein, of course, makes a specialty of resurrecting unusual and neglected repertoire. Mozart is unusually down-the-middle for him, but Bard is celebrated for its curve balls. We’ll see what they do with it.
Incredibly, Thursday was the first time the Berlioz edition of “Der Freischütz” had ever been presented in the United States. There were no projected supertitles during the performance. Rather, the America Symphony Orchestra did it the old-fashioned way, with the complete French-English libretto included as an insert in the program booklet. I found it surprising, although it is certainly an incentive for me to hang onto mine. (It tickles me to see Wolf’s Glen, the haunted ravine where all the supernatural business goes down, translated as Gorge du Loup.) I am astonished to find there has been only one recording of the Berlioz edition. From what I gather, it is worth having for the curiosity value, even if the performance itself isn’t on a level with any of the primary recommendations of the standard German version.
For as welcome a discovery as it was – and I would attend a performance of it again in a heartbeat – the sung dialogue and added ballet music made for a long evening, with three acts of roughly 50 minutes each and one intermission. With stopped traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel, I finally decided to take a chance and zip down to the Holland Tunnel, which turned out to be a big mistake. Even though by then it was after midnight, I don’t know how many lanes were funneling in from how many different directions, but once inside the tunnel there was construction, and everything was down to a single lane. It was nearly 2:00 by the time I arrived home in Princeton. More than once, my glacial escape from New York made me wish for one of Samiel’s magic bullets.
But I will always have the memory of the night’s performance, capped by that rousing ending, with singers and instrumentalists joined in a grand finale that would have done Sir Thomas Beecham proud. It’s the kind of experience that makes attending a live musical event, under whatever circumstances, worthwhile.
Weber in 1825
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“The Egyptian Helen” at Bard SummerScape, July 24-August 2
https://fishercenter.bard.edu/series/the-egyptian-helen/
“Mozart and His World” at the Bard Music Festival, August 7-16
