How Der Freischütz helped define community and culture in Germany

The nineteenth century was a time of European nationalism as borders and governments underwent massive change following the Napoleonic wars. German nationalism was a slow process for some seventy years, not counting the temporary split of East and West in the modern era.

Furniture of the Biedermeier period. Photo  © Geolina

Art played an important role in this process.

To become one unified German nation, it wasn't enough to encourage a sense of community among all the many disparate states and kingdoms of the region. It was also necessary to answer these simple questions:

What does it mean to be "German"? How should German culture be defined? How, culturally, are Germans different from Italians and Germans?

When Carl Maria von Weber created Der Freischütz, his aim was not merely an entertaining box-office hit, although he certainly achieved that in spectacular fashion. He was aware of the unification movement. He intended the opera to speak to his audiences on these larger issues. He also intended it, along with his other works, as a flat-out rejection of Italian opera. Although he led many performances of Rossini's works from the podium as conductor, Weber did not approve of the excesses of the florid bel canto vocal style or the librettos, which he considered frivolous. As is well-known, the path he carved out in Der Freischütz became a template for German Romantic opera for Wagner, Marschner and others.

Here are three examples of cultural messaging in Der Freischütz:

1) The pivot of the chorus in their treatment of Max.
The show opens with a scene dominated by the chorus of huntsmen and villagers. Max, the lead tenor role, is despondent following a miserable showing in a shooting competition in which he missed every target. The important aspect of this scene in terms of this post is the two-fold manner in which the chorus interacts with him.

At first, the villagers are inclined to give Max a hard time. Killian, the peasant who unexpectedly beat him, sings a smug ditty that we can loosely translate as "Nanny-nanny boo boo". Then the chorus joins him with a merciless and mocking tone. You knw how, in basketball, when a shooter misses the rim the crowd begins chanting "AIR BALL! AIR BALL!"? Yeah, that's the vibe here. The women cackle "hee hee hee" along with the orchestra while the men shout out insults:

But when Max takes the teasing badly, something significant happens. The crowd realizes that he's not just downcast, he's seriously grieving. As I pointed out in my previous post, he's actually in an Existential crisis, but no one thought in those terms in 1821. At any rate, both his marriage plans and career are at risk.

So they immediately pivot, coming together in an uplifting chorus of encouragement, urging Max to have faith:

Here's why that's a big deal - other, of course, than being gorgeous. Weber is subtly contrasting German history (disunity and division) with his vision of the future; namely, a close-knit community of like-minded people who become stronger when they stick together and pull for one another. The message was not ignored by his audiences.

2) Agatha: a very Biedermeier soprano
Frankly, when we try to explain the relative unpopularity of Der Freischütz outside of Germany, we have to assign Agatha some of the blame. And then we have to get over it!

Agatha's arias are lovely. I find them ravishing and exquisite. But for opera-lovers accustomed to the emotional roller-coaster of a typical Italian soprano aria, Agatha's solos can come off as curiously lacking in the passion and urgency of an Aida or a Tosca. Also, they lack the coloratura fireworks of Rossini and Donizetti. I can imagine casual opera fans thinking "SLOW AND BORING".

To better understand Agatha's affect, we again have to bear in mind Weber's extra-musical agenda of nationalism, now seen through the prism of a particular school of furniture design and home decor known as the Biedermeier period.

Following the trauma of the Napoleonic wars, Germanic people (among others) sought comfort; above all else they wanted to feel safe and secure. This led to a highly domestic ethos. Like you and I on a snow day, they wanted to stay home, keep their modest homes neat and tidy, and (in effect) watch old movies on TV (i.e. read Grimm's Fairy Tales), pop popcorn and wear their fuzzy slippers. Furniture of the Biedermeier era was of plain, functional, utilitarian design. Expensive antiques? No thanks - a simple table and chair were all that was desired. This, in part, accounts for the presentation of Agatha: she is the emblem of modest domesticity. And that word "modest" is very significant.

Besides emulating Biedermeier values, Weber intended Agatha to serve as a role model of German womanhood - the prototype of an ideal to hold up before young people. You'll have noticed, perhaps, that there is no love duet for Max and Agatha. Further, her arias express no sexual longing for Max - no sensual expression of being in his arms and so on.

"That", Weber is saying, "is fine for Italian or French women. But we Germans are made of finer stuff." A devout Catholic, Weber was adamant that his prima donna NOT be objectified sexually; NOT be made the woman valued only for her beauty as in so many Italian works. No love triangle here; no baritone lusting for Agatha; no kindling of "love at first sight". The focus of the opera is good vs. evil, not raging hormones.

So Agatha is deliberately virtuous, chaste, spiritual and modest, and these qualities are what come through in her music. She is the very model of a Biedermeier heroine. The problem? That "roller coaster" of fluctuations of extreme emotional states we find in Italian works is addictive. We get a visceral thrill from agony and ecstasy; we expect it in all operas; and there could be a let-down when it's missing.

My advice: rather than fretting about what Weber doesn't provide, listen for and savor the pleasures that are  present in Agatha's utterances.

3) That Huntsman's chorus
Long before Der Freischütz, Germans loved amateur choral societies, including their version of male glee clubs. They still do! So that celebrated number from Act 3 with its yodeling hunting horns and crisply rhythmic writing for tenors and basses hit home from two points of view. First, it's an ode to a big element of German life and culture, namely forestry and hunting, thus contributing to the definition of "being German". But also, it was a celebration of men's singing groups.

Community. Domesticity. Forestry. And singing. Four ways in which Carl Maria von Weber laid out a blueprint for the united German nation to come.

Smart bullets & Existentialism: the prophecies of Der Freischütz

Here's a partial list of famous prophets:

• Isaiah
• Nostradamus
• Carl Maria von Weber

  

  Carl Maria von Weber: prophet

Actually, as this post will demonstrate, Weber was WAY more accurate than that faker Nostradamus. The thing is, the composer of Der Freischütz was an unwitting prophet; he didn't know he was nailing future events in his opera.

Take those magic bullets on which the entire plot-line rests. Caspar (Bad Guy), hoping to trap Max (Good Guy) in a scheme to get a reprieve from the demon who owns his soul. The bait consists of "free bullets", magic chunks of lead that never miss their target, thanks to the demon's supernatural powers.

Fantasy, right? "As if", right? No such thing, right?

Wrong.

I dismissed "free bullets" as fiction up until the moment I was watching a rerun of CSI: Miami on cable the other night. (Don't judge - there was nothing else on any better.) The plot involved a murder victim killed by a bullet that followed a path around the corner of a building in its flight. 

Intrigued, I went to the Internet. Was this also fantasy, or could there be science behind this? We've all heard of smart bombs, but even a little projectile like a bullet? How smart could that be?

Pretty damn smart, it turns out. As this CNN article documents, "self-guided" bullets are a thing. On this and other websites, I read about ammunition embedded with microchips that can receive data to locate targets. I read about bullets that self-destruct if they miss their target, preventing "friendly fire". Bullets that can change their trajectory during flight. 

Remember how Keanu Reeves dodged bullets in The Matrix? Bad news, buddy - that move is SO 20th-century. Score one for Der Freischütz! 

But the other example of Weber's vision of the future is even cooler.

Consider Max. As an exemplar of a tenor protagonist, Max is ......... different. Simply put, he is by far the most MISERABLE, UNHAPPY, PATHETIC "hero" in some four centuries of opera history. Consider:

• As the opera opens, he's lost a shooting contest he was favored to win. Didn't make a single shot.
• The chorus of villagers mocks him - the women cackling in staccato giggles, the men shouting out "shade" (look it up in the Urban Dictionary
• He makes bad decision after bad decision, chief among them listening to "Evil Yoda", a.k.a. Caspar
• He lamely confesses all his screw-ups in the final scene, leading to banishment by the Prince.
• It takes the intervention of The Hermit to save his bacon and be put on probation.
• As the show closes, he's not out of trouble yet: he has to keep his nose clean for an entire year. If he can manage that (and little we've observed gives ME confidence on that score), then he can marry Agathe. 

Oof. Some hero. And Max is aware of how badly he's doing; he constantly expressess his misery. He pretty much wallows in it. This is what makes him different from your standard tenor. 

• Don Jose? He's got a lot to be happy about UNTIL Act 3, when he devolves into a hot mess for the rest of Carmen.
• Rodolfo? He's happy-go-lucky until his pathological jealousy ruins his love affair. And then, when Mimi dies, that's a bummer too, clearly.
• Radames? Yes, he's convicted of treason and is buried alive, but prior to that everyone in Egypt thinks he's "da MAN". They have this whole big parade in his honor - camels, horses, the whole shebang. 

BUT MAX! The happiest his music ever sounds is in the opening lyrical section of his Act 1 aria "Durch die Waelder", and that's only because he's remember when he USED to be happy in the past!

But it's in the concluding animated section of the aria in which, once again, Weber uncannily predicts an important phenomenon that was still decades away from emerging into prominence.

Max isn't just unhappy; he's in a full-blown existential crisis. Look at what he's saying:

“Despair clutches, mockery torments me! O will no ray pierce through this night?

Does fate rule blind? Is there no God?I can no longer bear the misery, the fear that robs me of all hope.” That's not "sadness", that's despair; and it rings the bell in terms of the definition of Existential Despair.

Despair, in existentialism, is generally defined as a loss of hope. More specifically, it is a loss of hope in reaction to a breakdown in one or more of the defining qualities of one's self or identity. MAX, in his Act 1 aria, rings all the bells in terms of Existential despair. The “defining quality”, the “particular thing” in which he has “invested his being”, is being a good shooter; a skilled huntsman. With this skill taken away by Kaspar’s magic, Max’s identity is crumbling.

Here's the thing: Der Freischütz  premiered in 1821, when Existential thought had not yet been conceived. It wouldn't be until  decades later, in the writings of Kierkegaard, that the precepts of Existentialism would first appear, and not until the 1930's when it would be codified by Camus and others.

Yet, if unnamed, the basis for Existential thought is right there on the stage in 1821 in a classic crisis of the breakdown of Max's defining self-identity.

Amazing.

Hey Weber - got any inside dope on the Super Bowl? Private message me, okay?

Der Freischütz and the origins of a "Star Wars" scene

Carl Maria von Weber had several goals in mind when crafting Der Freischütz, the opera currently in production at Virginia Opera. He wanted to create a new kind of music drama, one that would

A depiction of the Wolf's Glen scene.

• reject the empty virtuosity of the Italian coloratura vocal style favored by Rossini and his bel canto acolytes -- the rapid runs, trills and other extremes of technique -- in favor of a melodic style more faithful to the text;
• foster a sense of unity and community among the various Germanic regions and kingdoms as they struggled toward becoming the modern nation we know today;
• employ a story glorifying traditional German pastimes of forestry and hunting;
• increase the scope and role of both orchestra and chorus;
• incorporate folk materials, whether authentic or simulated; and most important to this post,
• introduce supernatural elements to the plot.

All these elements, taken together, add up to a significant achievement in opera history: the first truly Romantic opera ever written. Good job, Weber! One for the books.

Now, when I say "supernatural", I'm not talking the fun & games magic of Tamino's magic flute in Mozart's singspiel; we're talking SCARY HORROR-INDUCING TRAUMATIZING TERROR, I tell you.  Think Edgar Allan Poe! Think Stephen King! (Weber would've love The Shining.) Think Harry Potter!

And, really and truly, think Darth Vadar, Luke Skywalker, Yoda and Obi-wan Kenobi. For real.

In my opinion, the central scene in Der Freischütz is the genesis of a corresponding scene in The Empire Strikes Back, otherwise known as Episode V in the nine-episode arc of the Star Wars franchise. The similarities are fundamental; the differences insignificant.

The two scenes I have in mind are the "Wolf's Glen" scene in Act 2 of Weber's opera versus the scene in Empire when Luke travels to the planet Dagobah to receive Jedi training from Yoda. Let's give a short synopsis of each to compare:

Der Freischütz
Max, unable to shoot accurately, reluctantly agrees to meet the evil Kaspar at midnight at the Wolf's Glen, where Caspar will show him how to make magic bullets that never miss their target. Once there, Max sees visions: he sees his dead mother warning him to leave; he sees his sweetheart Agathe plunging from a bridge into a void. As Kaspar casts each bullet, new and terrifying visions appear: a charging boar, ghostly hunters, a cataclysmic storm and finally, with the seventh bullet, the satanic demon Samiel. At his appearance, Max and Caspar faint.

The Empire Strikes Back

Luke is told to enter a cave that is strong with the Dark Side's power. Ignoring Yoda's counsel to leave his weapons, Luke enters the cavern armed. Once inside, he has a vision of himself angrily confronting Darth Vader and beheading him. However, the severed head's mask bursts apart and reveals Luke's face underneath; it is a warning that if Luke battles Vader with no emotional control, he will become Vader himself, seduced by the Dark Side.

Both scenes fall into the literary category of phantasmagoria, or the depiction of a sequence of real or imaginary images like those seen in a dream.

See, both Max and Luke are experiencing what we may call an Existential Crisis (more about that in a future post): they both feel incomplete somehow - unprepared to fulfill their individual destinies. Dagobah is equally forbidding and eerie as the Wolf's Glen. Like Luke, Max receives supernatural warnings. The various characters match up nicely:

MAX = LUKE. A hero who is still developing his heroic traits. Rifle = light saber.

CASPAR = YODA. Except that Caspar is "bad evil Yoda". Yoda is training Luke in the good side of The Force, whereas Caspar is training the unwitting Max in the dark side of The Force.

SAMIEL = DARTH VADAR. The sudden appearance of each is climactic, dramatic and unnerving. Each represents Evil Incarnate.

Actually, the Star Wars team returned to a scene of phantasmagoria in last year's addition to the franchise, Episode VII: The Force Awakens. A new character, a scavenger called Rey, is the latest to experience a "Wolf's Glen" scene. Here's that synopsis:

Rey hears the screaming of a young girl and finds herself wandering deeper into the castle to find the source. She descends to a sub-chamber that is filled with relics of the past. There she is called by the Force to Maz's curio box, an ancient Wroshyr wood chest. Inside, she finds the lightsaber that had previously belonged to Anakin Skywalker and his son Luke. Upon touching the lightsaber, she receives a series of visions. Suddenly, she finds herself in Cloud City where Luke battled Darth Vader. As quick as she saw that vision, it goes away, and she now sees Luke placing his metallic hand on top of R2-D2 near a fire, at a site presumed to be Luke's burning Jedi Temple. Next, she finds herself lying in the rain at night to see the Knights of Ren surrounded by slaughtered victims, fearing for her life as Ren notices her. Before he reaches her, she sees herself as a child on Jakku watching the departure of her parents, yelling out to them to come back, and being told to quiet herself from Unkar Plutt. Looking to the future, Rey then finds herself being chased by Kylo Ren in a snowy forest. Rey pulls herself out of the vision in terror.

A castle sub-chamber... an Evil Cave... the Wolf's Glen... they're all the same place: a hostile forbidding place to which we must go to confront our deepest fears and anxieties; the place we go to learn more about who we are and what we're about. The place where magic and evil hover.

It's clear that we are living in a Neo-Romantic period in America. The movies that make the most money have continued the legacy of Der Freischütz, bringing us the pleasurable trauma of fantastical beasts, monsters, magic, wizards and things that go bump in the night.