Der Freischütz – review

Performances of Weber's Gothic tale of demonic pacts and shooting trials have become few and far between, so we should be grateful to Colin Davis for presenting it in concert with the London Symphony Orchestra. He feels great fondness for the work. Some would be surprised that it works away from the stage, owing to its mixture of speech and song, and its complex portrayal of the supernatural. But it works uncommonly well in concert, with dialogue replaced by narration: Weber's sense of the uncanny, after all, still has the power to chill your blood.

Viewing Weber as one of Wagner's major precursors, Davis presents the opera on the grandest of scales, with big orchestral forces, and a pair of established Wagnerian leads in Simon O'Neill's Max and Christine Brewer's Agathe. O'Neill is good at conveying the abysses in Max's soul as spiritual doubt rots his mind. Brewer is noble and rapturous, rather than timid and put-upon, though her tone has lost some of its former lustre. Davis wonderfully sustains the oppressive atmosphere, so that when the powers of darkness are defeated and the flutes usher us towards the light, we really do feel we are in a new and better world.

There are great strengths elsewhere: a fine Aennchen from Sally Matthews; Stephan Loges doubling the roles of demonic Zamiel and prissy Ottokar; and an outstanding Kaspar, malevolent and tortured, from Lars Woldt, a late replacement for the indisposed Falk Struckmann. The London Symphony Chorus have a great time with it, too, whether playing peasants and hunters, or shrieking through megaphones in the Wolf's Glen scene.