Author : Jos Hermans
Anyone who has followed Christoph Marthaler as a theater maker cannot have failed to notice that the headstrong Swiss director performs remarkably better when, freed from the straitjacket of a written score, he can go his own way undisturbed. Then the scenic poetry with which he enshrines ordinary mortals as tiny heroes in everyday reality often produces a delightful evening of theater, usually supplemented with hilarious musical fragments. In opera, an art form far too big for him, he almost always disappoints me. But Carl Maria von Weber's number opera, Der Freischütz, is a work that matches the way he thinks about theatre. And failing people like Max simply belong to the Marthaler universe. It is not the urge to deconstruct that drives Marthaler in his work for the opera scene but rather the desire to fill in known traditional pieces with the imagination of his own universe. Once again we encounter the familiar Marthaler cosmos in sets by Anna Viebrock, his longtime partner-in-crime. Viebrock's theatrical spaces are always dressed up with the glamour of the everyday. This time it is a waiting room/brasserie.
Der Freischütz is a play about outsiders in conflict with outdated conventions, an opera about the struggle between good and evil which only gets to its happy ending through the intervention of an old-fashioned deus ex machina (the hermit). Of course, the love happiness of young people should not depend on outdated traditions but could Weber and his librettist Friedrich Kind not have come up with anything other than such a moralizing finale? The other pain point of Der Freischütz are the spoken recitatives, peculiar to the Singspiel, which can sound very stiff, even from the throats of German performers. Marthaler knows how to deal with both problems.
Why not start the evening with a stunt? During the overture, where Weber puts all his cards on the table, the orchestra is slowly lifted up from the orchestra pit. Was the orchestra placed on a hydraulic lifting table? Equally surprising is to find Titus Engel, whom we have come to know primarily for his handling of 20th century works, conducting the Kammerorchester Basel , a 45-piece orchestra that swears by the interpretive aesthetics of gut strings and period instruments. "It allows us to create a brighter, more transparent and sometimes rougher sound," Engel says. Personally, I do not believe that an escape into period instruments automatically leads to transparency. Transparency, in my opinion, is achieved only through precision and perfectly synchronized groups of instruments. Dynamically, this orchestra can descend to almost inaudible pianissimi but there were also several flaws to be heard from the natural horns. For listeners familiar with the grander romantic readings of Carlos Kleiber & Co. it takes time getting used to. Will this orchestra develop sufficient dramatic clout and fullness of sound? The finale of the overture seemed to say so.
The hunters sit at tables. Bedazzled, they look ahead. The atmosphere is somber, the hunting and trial shooting prompting little animated table talk. A deer on wheels crosses the scene. Suddenly they raise the hunters' chorus in muffled voices, noses buried in their half-liter beer mugs. In the back of the stage there is another stage with a curtain, just like in Giuditta. It is the terrain for the choir that will perform excellently throughout the evening; the women mostly dressed in colorful aprons. The hopping of the women's chorus during the "He he he" laughter salvo is particularly effective. Max is a spineless loser. Minutes will pass as he will try to get his carbine working but sees the thing fall apart each time. The ultimate humiliation follows when Killian puts the gun back together in five seconds : pure slapstick and vintage Marthaler. Rolf Romei's tenor doesn't project that well. The voice gets very thin over large portions of the tessitura. There are also intonation inaccuracies.
Agathe is Nicole Chevaliers new debut. "Leise, leise, fromme Weise" she sings in sleeping robe and wool slippers, not as the dreamy girl we know from Elisabeth Grümmer but with the power of a lyric-dramatic soprano. The timbre is beautiful and the control over the entire vocal range is balanced. She can sing a messa di voce too; technically this is more than OK: a great debut. Not surprisingly, she is inundated with bouquets of roses from the hermit during her aria. Jochen Schmeckenbecher as Kaspar sings both of his arias with a perfectly articulating, deep baritone, you could almost call a bass baritone. Meanwhile, you can hear his wonderful Alberich shining through. Heike Wittlieb (Ännchen) and Raphael Clamer (Killian) were no doubt chosen by the director for their acting skills. Neither could keep me on my toes vocally. The five horns of the onstage brass band managed to blend effortlessly into the Marthaler cosmos.
Dialogues are deleted and some are added. Vocal numbers are also added, such as the a cappella hunter's song that concludes the first part, in a typical Marthaler-style, as the voices die out and the lights slowly dim.
After intermission, it is the orchestra's turn to sing the hunter's song. That they also do so with their noses in a beer pull is met with stormy applause in the auditorium. The choristers having occupied the tables and chairs on stage, open their violin cases now to simulate the dark playing of the Wolfsschlucht music rising from the orchestra pit. At the same time, Kaspar brews the seven bullets in a glass coffee pot. The Wolfsschlucht music is very beautiful, very transparent, yes, and particularly effective. Arriving at this point, it is clear that the orchestra possesses the fullness of sound that matches the intimacy of this venue. And even Rolf Romei gives his best here. "Und ob die Wolke," Agathe's rendez-vous with the cello, again plunges us into sweet Biedermeier sounds.
Ueli Jäggi as "Der grosse Jäger vom Schwarzwald" tries to entertain with a relatable chat about hunting: "Every hunter becomes a hare once". The orchestra now plays the hunting chorus but without a male chorus. Nor do we get to see the women's chorus for the Jungfernkrans. That one is sung and played by Ännchen at the buffet piano. And just when you think the hunter chorus will not be heard in full strength, the director brings the full male chorus to the edge of the stage starting the first verse. The second verse is sung from the wings. The final joke is reserved for the end, plunging the problematic finale into indescribable chaos: the women's chorus sings the Jungfernkrans, the men's chorus sings the hunter's song, the brass band repeats one of the peasant dances, the orchestra itself repeats the Wolfsschlucht music, all at the same time! Until the lights go out.
Der Freischütz is a co-production with Opera Ballet Vlaanderen.