A movie version of Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischütz has recently become available on DVD in the U.S., sung in German with English subtitles. The movie, directed by Jens Neubert and filmed in Germany in 2010, is called Die Jägersbraut (or Hunter's Bride) after an earlier version of the opera by that name.
Sadly, Der Freischütz is not performed very often in the U.S. But its overture is played frequently in American concert halls, and its stirring hunting choruses are known to orchestral horn players, at least. Freischütz is considered one of the first German romantic operas, the forerunner of more famous operas by Wagner and Strauss.
For all these reasons, I really wanted to see this opera, even if only on DVD.
Did this film opera truly express the drama inherent in Weber's music? Some parts of the film succeeded, while other scenes seem to have missed their mark. Some of the most stirring music, the hunting choruses, were treated as incidental to the drama, with the men's chorus audible but largely out of sight. The London Symphony Orchestra horns sounded magnificent, but we only caught glimpses of the hunting chorus on screen. These choruses are the wild heart of this opera; they should be given center stage.
And I don't know how well it served the opera to show scenes of hunters preparing the carcasses of the animals they have killed, without also showing the thrill of the chase, or any actual hunting scene, for that matter. Yes, we know that this is part of the reality of hunting, but scenes of hunters skinning the animals and hacking up their bloody carcasses provide an unwelcome gut-punch just when the music is ready to soar.
This kind of gritty hyper-realism also infects other scenes of the opera, most notably in the first shooting competition, when the villagers gather to mock the loser, Max, a hunter who has been beaten by a peasant. All the dirty faces, grime, shaggy hair...didn't the people of this town have soap? Water? Combs? All these things existed in 1813, I'm sure of it.
Max, played by Michael König, is forced to sing almost the entire opera with strands of his shaggy hair partially obscuring his dirty face. I think we have seen enough dirt and grime in movies; The Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy certainly put us over the top in that regard.
The scenes of this movie that really come alive are between the two women of the film, Agathe (Juliane Banse) and her cousin Ännchen (Regula Mühlemann). Director Jens Neubert turns Ännchen's arias into amusing romps, where she dances around and attempts to amuse Agathe. Ännchen even uses a puppet to act out a ghost story meant to divert her sister from her concerns about her upcoming wedding.
Agathe, played by Juliane Banse, sings a beautifully expressive and foreboding aria, accompanied by an achingly beautiful solo cello, about a bad dream she has had concerning her wedding day. From here until the end of the opera, the singing and acting brought out the full force of Weber's music drama. König's plea for forgiveness is moving and entirely believable; Max is a different man now, and his singing even sounds different: higher and purer.
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