Anschütz German Opera: Der Freischütz

Mistaken ad AFTER the performance. Verified the date of the paper and it's correct. The ad is wrong.

               “Herr Anchutz, one of the step-children of Dame Fortune, seems to have struck upon a vein of luck at last. His little speculation in German Opera promises to assume large dimensions, and if he only knows how to humor the fitful jade, who has played him so many freaks, he may soon exhibit in his person that rare spectacle, a money making impressario [sic].  The engagement of Madame Johannsen has been a judicious step on his part.  This lady, though neither very young nor personally very attractive, is an accomplished and conscientious artist, and manages to wake up the enthusiasm of our German audiences.

          “The old Wallack's Theatre is now alive with German opera. It is a striking elucidation of the cosmopolitan character of New-York over that even of Paris or London, to find dramatic entertainments given steadily in English, Italian, French and German. What other city in the world can say as much of its many-sidedness in the tongues? The ever-beautiful and glorious ‘Der Freischutz’ was performed on Friday night. The best impersonation was by Madame Johannsen.  The execution of her grand scena gave ample satisfaction to the German audience present – as much German almost as if assembled in Vienna, Berlin, or Dresden.

          The opera of 'Der Frieschutz,' [sic] is often produced one way or another, but not being given here on the Italian stage–though there is an Italian as well as English and French version–it is not much known to the habitués of the Italian opera. Amateurs who have not heard it would do well to listen to it on the modest little scale in which it is no presented at Wallack’s Theater. At the time of its composition, some forty years ago, it produced a revolution in German operatic music; instituting certainly a new school, which may be defined by the term romantic, and so far as Germany was concerned, evolving the popular spirit in its choruses of huntsmen, and some other music, and presenting scenes on a larger scale successfully than had hitherto been attempted. We look in vain in German musical literature for the equal of the scene of Agatha, above cited, in passion, loveliness, and dramatic effect; and if the equal of it has been written since for the German opera, we have not encountered it. Had the syllabication and other musical requirements of the text been better, the music in some other pieces, would have been more vocal, better conveying the idea of continuity, which is as essential to music as oratory. But the ideas in the orchestration, precisely representing the sentiment in the poetry or scene, exhibit the finest perception and genius imaginable.

          The plot of the piece is not heroic or historical, but simply hyper-romantic. The tradition of the Wild Huntsman of the Hartz Mountains to whom Caspar had sold his soul for so many unerring bullets, and the diablerie stolen bodily from 'Macbeth,' constitute its theme. It is remarkable that supernaturalism of ‘Der Freischutz,’ which might be made terrible, is as silly and laughable as that of the acted ‘Macbeth;’ and more than this could not be said, for that reaches the depths of foolery. The German audience could not stand the devilish monsters in paste-board, and the paper skeletons, lit up by red fires; they roared with laughter, and the supernatural music which was a revelation to the world when the divine genius of Weber evolved it, none having been conceived of previously–was drowned in explosive guffaws. We suggest that when Weber is attempted on the stage, he be approached reverently. Dramatically he is the greatest genius for the opera that Germany has yet produced. No such overtures to this day as his; no such tremendous originality as his Wild Huntsman’s work, as his drinking song – no such divine intensity as his heaven-breathing prayers.

          We would respectfully further suggest in detail, therefore, that all the Wolf's Glen scene be rendered dreamy, spiritual, and terrible, by simple mechanical means. Let there be layers of gauze hung across the stage; let all the crude objectivities be in the background, and seen as if in a vision. Let intangibility, and not brutal grossness, color the scene. And then the audience will not laugh. The owl will shriek; the skeleton huntsmen will rush past in the whirlwind; the rocks will be reft; the genius of the scene will be achieved."

Arion Society invested “some of the surplus profits from concerts in a new German opera enterprise at Wallack’s, under the baton of their own trainer, Anschutz. They have in Mme. Johannsen a first rate dramatic vocalist.  Her improvement within a year or two is wonderful in quality, tone and management of voice, and she yet retains, after many hardships, the enthusiasm and vigor that move a public.  We have not heard in years a more thrilling and effective performance of the grand scene and aria for soprano, which is the gem of Weber’s ‘Der Freischutz,’ than she gave on Friday last.  It magnetised and electrified a large German audience into almost Italian demonstrations of delight.  Mlle. Potter is also excellent in the second characters formerly taken by Von Berkel with so much acceptance. In other respects the opera is not much but cheap opera – fifty and twenty-five cents of course will not command first rate artists, or those who expect first-rate pay.  Quint and Weinlich are not in good working voice, and Lotti, who has a pretty sweet voice of good upward range is too light timbered for passion, or even emotion, and is no actor.  He is egregiously overrated and overpraised.”