Arion Gesangverein: Der Freischütz

“Weber’s chef d’oeuvre, ‘Der Freischuetz,’ was given in quite unexceptional style last night at the Academy by the Arion Society, assisted by the New York Sing Academie. The chorus numbered 150 voices and the orchestra exceeded sixty, the director being Carl Bergmann. As a performance, musically considered, it was highly creditable to the society, and the choruses were one and all sung with an ensemble, spirit and unanimity which one rarely hears from the rank and file of opera singers nowadays. Mr. Candidus, the first tenor of the society, has a light, flexible and pleasing voice, which study and application may yet bring up to a very high standard of artistic merit, and with more training in stage matters he may yet make his mark as an operatic singer. Mr. Remmertz sang and acted the rôle of the villainous ranger admirably, and the tall figure of Mr. Arfelbaum was just the undesirable Zamiel. Mme. Frederici-Himmer’s Agathe is too well-known to opera goers to need any comment here. Although at times her voice in falling below the pitch of the orchestra betrayed the evident decay of her once firm, sympathetic voice, yet she is still the same thorough artist, and her rendering of the beautiful prayer was marked with delicacy of expression. Mme. Rotter-Dieffenbach, as Aennchen, labored under the serious disadvantage of hoarseness, but still the melancholy fact remains that her career as a singer is well nigh closed, and all the spasmodic efforts to conquer the music of Weber were not successful or pleasing. The opera was well mounted, and there was a superabundance of uncanny things in the wolf’s glen scene. The house was crowded from dome to parquet.”

“The performance of ‘Der Freischutz’ by the Arion Society was repeated on Saturday evening in the New York Academy. The audience was German, and most appreciative, though not brilliant, for the Germans go [to] the opera to hear the music, not to look at each other. And opera cloaks were rari nantes in parquet and balcony. The smoke of the fireworks scene gave the Academy too nearly the appearance of a beer-garden. The singing was admirable, the ‘Hunter’s Chorus,’ by the Arion, exciting deservedly the greatest enthusiasm. It is to be hoped that success will induce the Society to give us often such genuine operatic entertainment.”