Customer Reviews

Weber - Der Freischutz / Seiffert, Nielsen, Salminen, Hartelius, Polgar, Vogel, Harnoncourt, Zurich Opera

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Much as Tosca succeeds best when the character Scarpia exudes evil, Der Freischutz needs a malevolent Kaspar. Here, Matti Salminen, with great acting and singing, never gives you a moment's doubt of his connection to the powers of darkness.

Whatever you have heard of this opera, it deals with humanity, and our basic fears. The hunter/marksman, Max, is insecure, worrying about his ability to do his job; about losing his grip. His fiancee, Agathe, has concerns about her upcoming marriage. She's tried to be a good girl; will Max win her; will she be happy?

Malin Hartelius, as Annchen, provides Agathe with a compassionate friend, and her singing and movement brighten scenes often overlooked.

The music is beautifully performed, as would be expected from conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

The downside is that this is the best Freischutz available, but it could have been so much better, simply by sticking closer to the original setting. With minimalist staging and unimaginative costuming, the Zurich Opera House, like so many others trying to "be different," has failed to give us a genuine, straightforward production of Weber's spooky tale.

Granted, this is an opera that is hard to stage, but nevertheless, there certainly must be better ways to do it than this eyesore staging. Furthermore, in the scene where Kaspar forges the magic bullets, the enclosed synopsis reads "increasingly strange apparitions occur: the ghost of Max's mother, warning him away; animals that spit fire; a hurricane trampling horses; wheels of fire; then finally, Samuel himself." Now, this all sounds very fascinating, but instead of all that good stuff, we see a bunch of figures in black jumpsuits wiggling their arms and legs, and crawling on a steeply slanted ramp. This is all very unfortunate because there are few staged productions of this opera outside of Germany, and I would have preferred to see the romantic essence of it, which Weber had intended. Zurich could have done better than this.

Aside from that, this set is musically excellent. Matti Salminen is one of my favorite singers and I got this set because of him; he does not disappoint. He boasts a HUGE, black bass voice which is especially rich in the low extreme. We also get a sense of how flexible his voice is. Furthermore, his acting is more inspired than anyone else in the cast. Peter Seiffert, who is one of the best heldentenors these days, also gives a convincing performance. Inga Neilsen, as Agathe, sings pleasantly but is rather uninvolved. Malin Hertelius is very good as Annchen. The Zurich Opera orchestra plays brilliantly under Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

I should give three stars, but I will add an extra star for Salminen's contributions. If you like his other villain roles such as Hagen, get this for him.

'Der Freischütz' has not fared well on video even though three versions are now available. The Stuttgart production is simply awful--that is the production that brought us a giant masturbating bunny. The Hamburg production is minimalist with all kinds of silly stage action to fill the space and time. This production from the Zurich Opera is also minimalist with stage direction by Ruth Berghaus and set design by Hartmut Meyer. The sets are not offensive, but they are certainly strange. The unchanging back of the stage is a bilious sulfuric yellowish green. In front of that are frequently changing two-dimensional hard-edged geometric shapes that don't really portray anything realistic at all. In the Wolf's Glen scene there is a part of the scene that is so severely raked that the actors have to move on all fours to go upstage. I'm not making this up! (And each of the seven magic bullets is presented to Kaspar by one of seven mimes in jet-black jumpsuits who then move up the raked stage in slow motion; they looked to me like a line of black ants. Why?) When Max enters from the back and moves downstage while singing one fears he will fall and break his neck. (By the way, the English subtitles uniformly refer to the Wolf's Glen as the 'Wolf's Ravine.' Didn't the translator know about 150 years of tradition on the English-speaking stage? Ah well.) Berghaus has peopled the stage with chorus and mimes in black overcoats (fedoras in the first act, black schmattas in Act III) who move ceaselessly all over the stage to no discernible purpose; chorus and principals spend an unusual amount of time crawling or lying on the stage. And there is the seemingly obligatory lascivious frottage featuring several pairs of chorus members. There are stereotyped movements of the people in black that sometimes remind me of Mike Myers's recurring satirical Saturday Night Live sketch featuring 'Dieter' and his German TV show, 'Sprockets.'

Musically things are better. With the exception of an acidulous- and weak-voiced Agathe (admittedly a big drawback, considering that she sings the big hit aria from this opera, 'Leise, leise' in Act II) the principals are good. Most outstanding (in spite of his Addams Family makeup) is huge-voiced basso Matti Salminen as Kaspar. Peter Seiffert is a stout-voiced Max (and he does manage not to slide into the orchestra pit in the raked Wolf's Glen set). The Ännchen of Malin Hartelius (a singer previously unknown to me) is stellar. One also needs to single out the effective singing of Werner Gröschel as Kuno.

The conductor in complete control of the musical presentation is the usually reliable and here quite wonderful Nikolaus Harnoncourt. His orchestra plays fabulously. One touch is that the brass appear to be playing period instruments although the rest of the orchestra is not. This is undoubtedly a choice of Harnoncourt's based on the importance of the brass in this music--there are hunting horns all over the score, of course, and they are smartly managed by the period horns and trombones.

Bottom line: This is not a production I would recommend, and especially not to anyone coming to this opera for the first time. I imagine that Central European audiences, who have seen many productions of this classic, can accept this kind of stylization in one of their favorites. But outside that ambit 'Freischütz' is not produced all that much and much of the staging is simply puzzling, if not downright irritating.

In spite of the musical values here, I cannot recommend this 2 DVD set.

Scott Morrison

Do yourself a favor skip this current DVD offering and get the excellent ARTHAUS MUSIC DVD with Gottlob Frick, Arlene Saunders and an excellent cast in a great traditional (in the best sense of the word) production.

UPDATE 21 DECEMBER 2010

A new film version of Der Freischutz ( Titled "Hunter's Bride") is opening in German theaters. Film clips are already on line and this has very good possibilities, in my opinion, when compared to all the current DVDs. This is a difficult opera to stage, hence I am open to some revisions and added sound effects given that this film appears to have put the opera back in it's original time and place. There are trees, period buildings, fields and wonderful costumes. Camera work is variable, and as a German review suggests, there is a sense of using different camera techniques in a random way. I can't imagine a better cast. Partial cast listing: Prince, Franz Grundheber. Agathe, Juliane Banse. Kaspar, Michael Volle. Hermit, Rene Pape. Kilian, Olaf Baer. conductor, Daniel Harding. Rundfunkchor Berlin. Release of the film in American theaters is planned. DVD release date for the German market is Sept. 15, 2011.

Search for the "making of" and four other clips to get a hint of what it looks and sounds like. These can be found by doing searches for German sites, Freischutz, and/or Hunters Bride. Music samples are very short, but what I heard was excellent musically. Sound mix was poor in one of the clips and it is quite likely that the movie mix will be different. In some cases even the authorized on line postings of opera DVDs have very high distortion, and/or bad mix. Amateur postings sometimes are better.

Now the Review of the 1999 Zurich DVD.

NEW DVD BRAND, SAME PERFORMANCE

(IT IS POSSIBLE THAT THE SOUND ISSUE HAS BEEN IMPROVED. THIS REVIEW IS BASED ON THE FIRST ISSUE ON TDK)

During the Wolf Glen the sound fades away. It is possible that Harnoncourt directed the orchestra to fade gradually during the Wolf Glen, but I think it is more likely the result of how the orchestral/vocal balance was mixed. This recording gives a strong sense of the voices and orchestra being in separate venues. By 1999, most sound engineers were aware of the need to preserve dynamic relationships over time, so the climax comes in the right place. Compression is not in itself a big problem here. Siegfried from the Met and a Lohengrin from Bayreuth, have no serious compression issues, or level shifts over time,despite being recorded in 1990. Zurich seems to have cured their audio problems in 2000, better late than never. The carlos Kleiber CD is a much better sounding recording, despite it's analog origin.


NOW FOR WHAT CANNOT BE FIXED:

This is a dark gloomy staging that at first seems to be trying to express something profound. On repeated viewing what emerges in my opinion is that the characters are trapped in a rigid society that demands conformity. Max is played as a bookish loner. So far so good. Max sings while waist deep in a pit, is this an attempt to suggest that he is halfway to hell? When Agatha appears in a drab yellow dress with Annchen in a black dress from a halloween party shop, things go down hill. They are lying on the stage. When they stand up, there is a crude sex reference involving a rifle. Only the men are supposed to have guns. The trio, Agatha, Annchen and Max, is beautifully sung but the stage direction has Annchen walking back and forth, playing with a pair of scissors which I find very distracting. Malin Hartelius (Annchen) seems "boxed in" by the staging. I have watched all her DVDs, and regardless of what the stage director makes her do, she is able to do something interesting with it , except here and as Adele in the Salzburg production of Fledermaus (another disaster). In both cases she looks detached. I can only imagine the clever things she would do with Annchen if the production would allow some humor. Only Matti Salminen (Casper) gets a little of what he needs to be effective.

To me, the forest is a vital part of this opera along with Rusalka, Hansel und Gretel and Siegfried. There are no trees here, unless of course a sickly green backdrop counts as trees. Some how this strikes me as much worse than Carson's staging of Rusalka with an indoor pool, instead of a pond in the forest. At least Carson makes a water reference.

The Wolf Glen is two inclined planes on which the singers, and black clad apparitions, climb up on and slide down. One redeeming feature is the casting of the bullets using real fire.

In the end I feel that nothing of depth has been expressed in this attempt to put a Brechtian look on this opera.

Vocally this is a wonderful performance, but in my opinion this opera cannot be slowed down this much. Harnoncourt lets himself go along with the stage director in doing this, giving us more time to look at the ugly staging. Harnoncourt's "slow" is not an "interesting slow" such as some of Furtwaengler's performances. It's just boring. His conducting in Zurich's 2001 Return of Ulisse is wonderful, as is his Orlando Paladino of 2005, Hartelius really shines in these recordings.

Zurich has revived this production, so it still has a following in Europe where people are bored by years of traditional productions. In my opinion it is time for someone to stage this opera in a somewhat traditional way. Historically Freischutz is a valuable opera that follows Beethoven's Fidelio in the development of romantic opera and anticipates Der Fliegende Hollander by Wagner. As such, a series of DVDs that deconstruct this opera, are not helpful to Americans who have never seen it done as written.

Frankly, I prefer to use my imagination, rather than look at this mess, and listen to the Carlos Kleiber CD.

THIS DVD HAS RETURNED ON ANOTHER LABEL, JAN 2010.

This is not a full review. I have waited until I obtained excellent audio gear that tested out perfectly on 20 DVDs before writing this.
In addition to a production that required the singers to humiliate themselves, the audio is bad. During the Wolf Glen the sound fades away.
It is possible that Harnoncourt directed the orchestra to fade gradually during the Wolf Glen, but I think it is more likely the result of how the orchestral/vocal balance was mixed. This recording gives a strong sense of the voices and orchestra being in separate venues. Zurich seems to have cured their audio problems in 2000.

This production,and it's bad audio engineering, is a waste of a fantastic cast. This is the only DVD of Hartelius at Zurich Opera that I regret buying. It is possible that a DVD ,yet to be released, of a 1968 production will at least give us a chance to see a good staging. Sound and picture quality may not be good due to age. There is always the Carlos Kleiber CD on DGG.