Production:
Director – Joan Anton Rechi
Set and Costume design – Markus Meyer
Lighting – Steff Flächsenhaar
Dramaturgy – Anna Neudert
Chorus director – Thomas Bönisch
Cast:
Ottokar – Aksel Daveyan
Max – Johannes Leander Maas
Agathe – Adréana Kraschewski
Ännchen – Stephanie Hershaw
Kaspar – Seungweon Lee
Samiel – Martin Bermoser
Hermit – Daniel Eggert
Kilian – Seumas Begg
Kuno – Stephen K. Foster
Since the start of the 2024/25 season, the Staatstheater Oldenburg has been under a new artistic management, complete with new logo and formats of season and programme brochures. Most importantly, as is normally the case when management changes, the new artistic director, Georg Heckel, brought a new company of permanent and guest singers and actors with him, and is introducing production teams that are equally new to the Oldenburg audiences, while his predecessor, Christian Firmbach, would have taken many members of his company and his production teams with him to his new place of work (he now leads the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe). Thus, team and cast for Der Freischütz were new to Oldenburg audiences, while the conductor, Hendrik Vestmann, has continued as general music director (but is leaving the company at the end of the 2024/25 season).
New to the audience, too, was some of the music and some of the text, because the work on offer was called, as opposed to the original, Der Freischütz, but instead Freischütz. Ein Tanz mit dem Bösen (‘Freischütz. A dance with evil’). Elena Kats-Chernin composed additional music for orchestra, soloists and chorus, while Susanne Felicitas Wolf revised and added to Friedrich Kind’s original libretto. According to the programme notes, the revisions and additions were intended to both respect the original music and libretto and to make the characters’ motivations clearer and provide new emphases.
Instances of the new music were obvious throughout, and they fitted in unobtrusively with the original in terms of instrumentation, style, and demands they made on the singers. The revision of the libretto focused on the character of Samiel, who became a kind of conférencier (as in the musical Cabaret), Mephisto-like, guiding the audience through the plot with wit and sarcasm. In the end, he questioned the apparent ending of good, mediated through the Hermit, winning over evil. The year’s probation that Max is offered to redeem himself, Samiel argues, is a long time for him (and evil in general) to take hold of Max again and destroy him just as Kaspar was destroyed. Samiel was given some lines to sing – however, more in the style of musical than in that of Weber’s opera!
The role of Samiel as emcee was supported by the generally black and white motif of the costume design (with Samiel predominantly black and the Hermit in a white suit but with black and white shoes), the huntsmen in black trousers and white shirts with black braces, and the womenfolk equally in black dresses with white aprons. Agathe was dressed entirely in white with a black belt and black wristbands, while Ännchen was in black, but with white shoes with black heels. Max stood out from these black and white patterns with a brown leather coat. The glittery nature of Samiel’s suit and top hat was mirrored in the set design, where the stage space was demarcated to both sides and the back by a curtain of thin strips of plastic that reflected the light. A large tree-like structure hung high above the stage for the outdoor scenes and was lowered to the floor for the scene in the ravine, while a separate structure on a set wagon was brought on to represent the hunting lodge: the outward frame was black, the interior with its low ceiling and irregular surfaces was white.
Under Vestmann’s baton, the orchestra provided a unified sound of new and existing material and allowed the singers’ voices to float effortlessly across the theatre. Adréana Kraschewski was excellent as Agathe. The voice was free, open, well focused and clear as a bell. Stephanie Hershaw provided a good vocal contrast as Ännchen: fresh, lively, and appropriately adept at the coloratura the role demands. Johannes Leander Maas sang Max with a sturdy, beefy rather than metallic voice, suitably heavy, but at times too much so, resulting in the need to force the voice where less effort would have sounded better. Seungweon Lee sang Kaspar with the necessary level of darkness, while Daniel Eggert as the Hermit emphasised beautiful legato. Aksel Daveyan (Ottokar), Seumas Begg (Kilian) and Stephen K. Foster (Kuno) proved reliable in the best sense of the word. I am looking forward to seeing and hearing those singers in larger parts. Martin Bermoser as Samiel captured the conférencier-nature of his part very well indeed. With very slick movements, and equally prominent speaking and singing voice, he did more than full justice to the role created for him within this imaginative, intelligent revision of the opera.
Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe