Der Freischütz

"Recording of the month: In such a wide open recording venue, the voices are inevitably recorded very closely; this is a customary price to pay at an opera staged in an outdoor arena-like setting. Despite these limitations, this is certainly the most enjoyable video of Der Freischütz that I have yet encountered. This DVD's sense of gleeful, gothic fun more than makes up for any changes to story and the occasional tinkering with Weber's score".

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"Recommended: This 2017 La Scala production is a game-changer, however, and it does the best job I've yet seen of putting the opera on stage in a way that is neither daft nor wilfully obstructive. Matthias Hartmann goes for a mixture of the specific and the abstract. There are plenty of trees to put us in the forest, but well-placed strips of lighting suggest the church, the hut and the mountainscape behind ... The musical performances are excellent too. Who would have thought that the La Scala orchestra would be so good at this cornerstone of the German repertoire? ... The singers are top-notch. Julia Kleiter is radiant, luxuriously beautiful in her two big arias ... I found it completely compelling and was totally won over ... By some margin the best opera film I've seen in 2019 so far".

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"Vurdering: Recording of the month" - "Köhler has successfully moved the action forward to what could almost be present day but with the war-damaged buildings and choice of clothing suggesting 1960s Bavaria ... König sings splendidly throughout with a sweet quality to his high register ... Making a real impact in the role of Kasper is bass Georg Zeppenfeld ... Axel Köhler's must-see production is a tremendous spectacle both for the sheer quality of the performances and the remarkable sonic and visual pyrotechnics".

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"Warning: This 'Freischütz' contains entirely rewritten dialogue, added music, cut music, an additional character, reorderings and general scenes of a freely adapted nature. Some might want to look away now. But for those willing to embrace Philipp Stölzl's rethinking of Weber's hit opera, filmed on the spectacular floating stage at 2024's Bregenzer Festspiele, there's devilish fun to be had. The Austrian director has sought creatively to bring the work to life for a modern audience, not just through theatrical wizardry - and there's plenty of that, given Bregenz's unprecedented budgets - but through an intelligent acknowledgement of elements of the work that can surely, even to its staunchest admirers, feel a bit creaky in the theatre ... It's not all about the director, though, and thankfully the festival has assembled a superb cast, who live and breathe his concept with full commitment ... The chorus work and orchestral playing under Enrique Mazzolo are lively and engaged ... Anyone after a fresh, entertaining and intelligent take on Weber's work should seek it out".

"There are plenty of pyrotechnics here, and red demons writhing in the forest while Myung-Whun Chung fires up the La Scala orchestra ... Groissböck is the star of the show, his muscular bass perfect for the role of the tortured forester in league with the devil ... Julia Kleiter is a lovely Agathe ... Chung conducts a clean account that has plenty of drama where it is required, while the villager scenes have bounce and charm. If only the production knew what it wanted".

"This is supple, carefully sifted music-making, beautifully paced ... The vocal casting is as precise and well calculated as the overall musical approach but the production seems to nervous of the work itself to give the singers anything dynamic to do. Both Michael König ... and the American soprano Sara Jakubiak are convincing presences and have voices ideally placed between the lyrical and the more heroic".

"Irgendwie hätte man sich da mehr erwartet: Christian Thielemann am Pult ... dirigiert den Freischütz sehr al fresco: wirkungsbewusst, aber flach gehalten in der Klangbildsprache ... So kommt leider auch die Inszenierung Axel Köhlerz daher. Die weiss um den tieferen Sinn der Parabel, über Kriegspsychosen, männerbündische Mutproben, Versagensängste ... ".