DESCRIPTION:
DER FREISCHÜTZ
Romantische Oper in 3 Aufzügen
Composer: Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826)
Libretto: Johann Friedrich Kind
First performance: Schauspielhaus Berlin, 18 June 1821

SETTING: Bohemia, at the end of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648)

PLOT: The ‘Freischütz’ is a marksman who has made a pact with the devil for ‘Freikugeln’, magic bullets that can shoot whatever he wants; the seventh bullet, however, is the devil’s. In Weber’s opera, Kaspar, the assistant forester, has sold his soul to Samiel, the Black Huntsman, and is due to lose it the next day. Kaspar persuades Max, an assistant forester, to make magic bullets; Max has to show his prowess at a competition the next day to succeed the head forester and marry his daughter Agathe. In this way, Kaspar hopes to gain another three years of life. Despite Agathe and her cousin Ännchen’s warnings, Max goes to the dreadful Wolf’s Glen at midnight, where Kaspar summons Samiel and makes the magic bullets. Kaspar’s plans fail; Samiel drags him to hell, and, after a year of probation, Max will marry Agathe.

No. 10 - Finale: ‘Milch des Mondes fiel aufs Kraut’ (Wolf’s Glen Scene)
In the fearsome Wolf’s Glen, the hunter Kaspar, who has made a pact with the demon Samiel, makes a circle of boulders round a skull; nearby lie a crucible, a bullet mould and an eagle’s wing; invisible spirits sing of the coming victim.
Kaspar lifts the skull on his hunting knife, and as midnight sounds he calls on Samiel, who agrees to accept Max in exchange; Kaspar suggests that the seventh of the bullets he proposes to forge, which belongs to the Devil, shall be turned on Max’s lover Agathe.
Max arrives, full of foreboding; he sees visions of his mother and then of Agathe, but agrees to help Kaspar, who now puts into the casting ladle broken glass from church windows, lead, quicksilver, three bullets that have found their mark, and the eyes of a hoopoe and a lynx. As he calls on Samiel, the mixture in the crucible glows; each casting is accompanied by an echo as he calls out the number, and by apparitions, ending in Samiel himself. As Kaspar falls senseless to the ground, Samiel reaches a hand towards Max. The clock strikes one.
(Deutsche Grammophon synopsis)

Kaspar, erster Jägerbursche / an assistant forester (bass): Kurt Böhme
Max, zweiter Jägerbursche / an assistant forester (tenor): Richard Holm
Samiel, der schwarze Jäger (Satan) / the black huntsman (spoken): Ernst Ginsberg

Conductor: Eugen Jochum
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Radiofunks
Munich, 1959