Somewhere between a fairy tale and a horror movie, Philipp Stölzl’s radical reworking of Weber’s opera is a dark, riotous production of startling stagecraft to delight those who love a spectacle.
In a major departure from the original, the devil’s assistant Samiel emerges as a major character who appears at the outset to explain—in new, witty rhyme by Jan Dvořák—what is about to happen. It’s not an entirely new idea, director Kirill Serebrennikov having used a similar device for Dutch opera in 2022, but his evil machinations have a very different outcome.
Max, here cast as a clerk, is required to win a shooting competition in order to earn the hand of the head woodsman’s daughter Agathe. The forester Caspar is in hock to Samiel and to gain a few extra years of freedom lures Max into a demonic alliance so the latter can obtain magic bullets that will ensure his success.
When the contest takes place, Max seems to have shot his loved one, but all ends happily. It is Caspar who has been killed, Agathe recovers from a mere faint, Max is forgiven his errors, lovers embrace, violins soar, angels sigh. Except not in Stölzl’s version.
Over the opening prelude, we witness in advance the burial of Agathe and the lynching of Max, whose body plunges into the moat in which much of the action is played.
Don’t like it? After this all comes to pass in the final scene, Moritz von Treuenfels’s Samiel cheekily addresses the audience: "your ticket is non-refundable. Anyone bothered by an unpleasant ending is out of luck. That’s art."
That is also one in the eye for those who complain that this is not really Weber’s opera any more. The score has been heavily cut, the libretto rewritten and the extensive spoken dialogue is often accompanied by new music for accordion, harpsichord and double bass.
Except again—Samiel then confesses to being a bit of a Romantic, and allows the original hearts and flowers ending to be played out after the nasty one.
I am not sure that Stölzl can really get away with having it both ways, but what the heck? With a fire-breathing dragon and a skeletal horse that rise from the waters, it’s a lot of fun to watch. And no more than might be expected from this very cinematic director.
Perhaps best known as a producer of music videos, he is fond of cinematic references in his direction and design: synchronised water spirits cavort like Esther Williams extras, ghouls emerge like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. (His wonderful Rusalka for Dutch National Opera in 2023 was entirely based on the water sprite’s dreams of Hollywood.)
Just as prominent is Stölzl’s homage to The Magic Flute, Weber being the cousin of Mozart’s wife Constanza, in the Sarastro-like figure of Andreas Wolf as the god-like Hermit, who intervenes to save Max, with a Masonic symbol in the background.
The snowy set resembles a fanciful Christmas card scene hit by a hurricane, with lopsided buildings suggestive of general instability. Inevitably, production values overwhelm musical considerations, but nevertheless, the principal performers deliver Weber’s beautiful melodies impeccably, despite often wading in water or even getting a complete ducking.
Nikola Hillebrand brings a lovely warmth of tone to the role of Agathe, who, wouldn’t you know, is both pregnant and possibly gay—a double whammy for modernism, and Mauro Peter as Max has remarkable depth for a tenor, although the same cannot always be said for his acting.
Katharina Ruckgaber as Ännchen shares a fine duet with her cousin Agathe, but one of her arias is omitted, and Christof Fischesser has Kaspar’s drinking song, with unnerving high piccolo, sadly cut short.
Somehow, this review has failed thus far to mention the Wolf Glen scene, the epicentre of German Romantic opera, presented as part of Agathe’s nightmare. Enrique Mazzola expertly brings together the Vienna Symphony and Prague Philharmonic Choir, both set apart from the stage, and their combined forces—plus some interpolated animal cries—help make this the spookiest representation I have seen.
But it is the visual aspect that remains in the memory, including the sight of Samiel astride his resurrected nag dragging away the condemned Caspar—off to hell in a handcart. And Weber with him, some might say.