Modern opera can be dated from Der Freischütz. Yet it goes without saying (since nothing is quite new under the sun) that the work was not as novel in its day as it seems to us after the lapse of nearly a century. The elements of romanticism had existed in opera long before Weber’s time. In Gluck’s ‘Armide’ the voluptuous adventures of Rinaldo in the enchantress’s garden had breathed the spirit of the German folk-lore awakening, though treated in Gluck’s style of classical purity. Mozart, especially, must be counted among the romanticists of opera. The final scene of Don Giovanni, with its imaginative playing with the supernatural, to the accompaniment of most impressive music, seems to be a sketch in preparation for Freischütz. And the spirit of German song had already entered into opera in ‘The Magic Flute,’ which is in great part as truly German as Weber, except for its Italian grace and delicacy of treatment. Moreover, ‘The Magic Flute’ was a singspiel, or dramatic work with music interspersed with spoken text—the form in which Der Freischütz was written. Mozart’s opera might have founded the German school, had conditions been different, but beyond the fact that the story is obscure and distinctly not national, the German national movement had not yet begun. We have seen in a previous chapter how it took repeated invasions and insults from Napoleon to arouse patriotism throughout the disjointed German lands, and how the patriotic spirit had to fight the repression of the courts at every turn. We have seen how it was hounded from the streets to the cellars and how from beneath ground it cried for some work of art which should symbolize and express its aspiration while it was in hiding. It was this conjunction of conditions which gave Freischütz such peculiar popularity at the time—a popularity, however, which was fully justified by its artistic value and could not have been achieved in such overwhelming degree without it.
The Italian opera, before Weber’s time, had carried everything its own way. Those patriots who longed for the creation of a German operatic art had no sort of tradition to turn to except the singspiel. This was never regarded highly, and was considered quite beneath the dignity of the aristocracy and of those who prided themselves on being artistically comme il faut. And it was frequently as cheap and thin (not to say coarse) as a second-rate vaudeville ‘skit’ to-day. But it had in it elements of good old German humor, together with occasional doses of German pathos, and cultivated a German type of song, such as then existed. At any rate, it was all there was. Weber had no turn for the Italian ways of doing things, and little knowledge of them. So when he sought to write serious German opera that should appeal to a great mass of the people—the desire for national popularity had already been stirred in him by the success of his Leyer und Schwert songs—he was obliged to write in a tongue that was understood by his fellow men. It is doubtful whether Der Freischütz could have gained its wide popularity had its few pages of spoken dialogue been replaced by musical recitative in the Italian style. Such is the influence of tradition.
But he had no need to be ashamed of the true German tradition to which he attached himself. The singspiel, which represented all there was of German opera, frequently cultivated a style of music which, if simple, was genuinely musical and highly refined. Reichardt’s singspiel, Erwin und Elmire, to Goethe’s text, has been mentioned in the chapter on Romantic Song, and its Mozart-like charm of melody referred to. The singspiel was a repository for German song, and frequently drew upon German folk-lore or ‘house’ lore for its subject matter. It needed only the right genius at the right time to raise it into a supreme art form.
As early as 1810, when Weber was still sowing his wild oats and flirting with a literary career, he had run across the story of the Freischütz in Apel’s newly published book of German ‘ghost-tales.’ The subject stirred his imagination and he planned to make an opera of it. But he found other things to turn his hand to, and was unable to hit upon a satisfactory librettist until in 1817 he met Friedrich Kind, who had already become popular with his play, Das Nachtlager von Granada. Kind took up with the idea, and in ten days completed his libretto. Weber worked at it slowly, but with great zest. Four years later, on the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, it was performed for the first time, at the opening of the new Royal Theatre in Berlin. Its electric success, as it went through the length and breadth of Germany, has been described in a previous chapter.
Kind deserves a large share of the credit for the success of the work, though it must be confessed that he did not wear his laurels with much dignity. He protested rather childishly against the excision of two superfluous scenes from his libretto, and was forever trying to exaggerate his share in the artistic partnership. It seems to have been pique which prevented him from writing more librettos for Weber—and what a series of operas might have come out of that union! In 1843, long after Weber’s death, he published a book, Das Freischützbuch, in which he aired his griefs. The volume would have little significance except for one or two remarkable statements in it. ‘Every opera,’ he says, ‘must be a complete whole, not only from the musical, but also from the poetical point of view.’ And again: ‘I convinced myself that through the union of all arts, as poetry, music, action, painting, and dance, a great whole could be formed.’ How striking these statements sound in view of the art theories which Wagner was evolving for himself five and ten years later! And it must be said, to Kind’s justice, that he had worked consistently on this theory in the writing of the Freischütz libretto. He had insisted that Weber set his work as he had written it, and his insistence seems to have been due to more than a petty pride.
The opera tells a story which had long been told, in one form or another, in German homes. Max, a young hunter, aspires to the position of chief huntsman on Prince Ottokar’s domains. If he gains it he will have the hand of the retiring chief huntsman’s daughter, Agathe, whom he loves. His success depends upon overcoming all rivals in a shooting contest. In the preliminary contest he has made a poor showing. In fear of failure he listens to the temptation of one Caspar, and sells his soul to the devil, Samiel, in return for six magic bullets, guaranteed by infernal charms to hit their mark. A seventh, in Max’s possession, Samiel retains for his own use. The bullets are charmed and the price of the soul stipulated upon in dark Wolf’s Glen at midnight. In this transaction Caspar acts as middleman in the affair in order to induce Samiel to extend the earthly life of his soul, which has similarly been sold. On the day of the shooting match Agathe experiences evil omens; instead of a bridal wreath a funeral wreath has been prepared for her. She decides to wear sacred roses instead. Max enters the contest and his six bullets hit the mark. Then, at the prince’s commands, he shoots at a passing dove—with the seventh bullet. Agathe falls with a shriek, but she is protected by her sacred wreath and the bullet pierces Caspar’s heart. Overcome with remorse Max confesses his sin. He is about to be banished in disgrace when a passing hermit pleads for him, urging his extreme temptation in extenuation, and he is restored by the prince to all his happiness, on condition that he pass successfully through a year’s probation.
This story may stand as a type of the romantic opera plots of the time. Of first importance was its use of purely German materials—the national element which gave it its political significance. Only second in importance was the fact that it was drawn from folk-lore and hence was material intelligible and interesting to everybody, as contrasted with the classic stories of the operas and plays of eighteenth century France, which were intelligible only to the upper class educated in the classics, and which was specifically intended to exclude the vulgar rabble from participation and so serve as a sort of test of gentility. Third was the incidental fact of the form which this democratic and national spirit took—an interest in the element of the bizarre, the fanciful, and the supernatural. It was wholly suited to the tastes of the romantic age that the devil Samiel should come upon the stage in person and charm the seven bullets before the gaping eyes of the audience.
The music shows Weber supreme in two important qualities, the folk sense and the dramatic sense. No one before him had been able to put into opera so well the very spirit of German folk-song, as he did in Agathe’s famous moonlight scene, or in the impressive male chorus, accompanied by the brass, in the first act. In power of characterization Weber is second only to Mozart. The opening duet of the second act, sung by the dreamy Agathe and the sprightly Ännchen, gives to each character a melody which expresses her state of soul, yet the two combine with utmost grace. In his characterization of the supernatural Weber had no adequate prototype save the Mozart of the cemetery and supper scenes in Don Giovanni, for Spohr’s operatic setting of the Faust legend was classic in tone and method. The verve of the music of Wolf’s Glen is exhilarating to the imagination. Samiel, whose speeches are accompanied by rolls or taps on the kettle-drums, seems to live to our ears and eyes, and as the bullets, one after another, are charmed, the music rises until it bursts in a stormy fury. Many of the tunes of Der Freischütz have become folk-songs among the German people, and the bridal chorus and Agathe’s scene may be heard among the very children on their way home from school, while the vigorous huntsmen’s chorus is a staple of German singing societies wherever the German language is spoken.
From the earliest years of his creative activity Weber had been composing operas. And they grew steadily better. The one just preceding Freischütz was Abu Hassan, a comic opera in one act telling the difficulties of Hassan and his wife Fatima to escape their debts. The dainty and bustling music has helped to keep the piece alive. But the piece which Weber intended should be his magnum opus was Euryanthe, which followed Freischütz. The critics, differing with the public in their opinion concerning the latter work, admitted Weber’s power of writing in simple style, but asserted that he could not master longer concerted forms. Weber accepted the challenge and wrote Euryanthe as a work of pure romanticism, separated from the national element, conceived on the broadest musical scale. It is a true opera, without spoken dialogue. The music is in parts the finest Weber ever wrote, and in more than one way suggests Lohengrin, which seems to have germinated in Wagner’s mind in part from the study of Euryanthe. Weber’s last opera, written on commission from Covent Garden, London, and completed only a few months before his death, was ‘Oberon,’ a return to the singspiel type, with much of the other-worldly in its story. Euryanthe had failed of popular success, chiefly through its impossibly crude and involved libretto. ‘Oberon’ was better, but far from ideal. It has, like ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ Oberon, Titania, Puck, and the host of fairies, together with mortal lovers whose destinies become involved with those of the elves. The music is often charming, revealing a delicacy of imagination not found in Freischütz, but it is lacking in characterizing power, and reveals its composer’s lessening bodily and mental vigor.
Weber had established German opera on a par with Italian, and there stood men ready to take up his mantle. Chief of these was Heinrich Marschner.[100] He is best known by his opera Hans Heiling, which tells the adventurer of the king of the elves who takes human form as the schoolmaster, Hans Heiling, in order to win a mortal maiden. The music is full of romantic imagination and is generally supposed to have influenced Wagner in the writing of ‘The Flying Dutchman.’ Marschner’s other important operas are Templer und Jüdin, founded upon ‘Ivanhoe,’ and ‘The Vampire.’