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by Carl Maria von Weber, directed by Marshall Pynkoski

Opera Atelier, Elgin Theatre, Toronto

October 27-November 3, 2012

“Opera Atelier Triumphantly Enters a New Century”

Opera Atelier, which has previous dedicated itself to historically informed productions of 17th- and 18th-century operas, took the bold step this season of presenting Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz (1821), its first 19th-century opera.  Even though it is a repertory staple in Central Europe, this is also the first known fully staged professional production of the opera in Toronto.  While the production was mounted specifically as a vehicle for Croatian tenor Krešimir Špicer, it also provided the opportunity OA exploits in all of its productions of fully integrating dance into the staging.  The experiment is so successful that having seen Der Freischütz performed with a full corps de ballet, it’s hard now to imagine an effective production without one. 

The libretto by Friedrich Kind based on a German folk legend, tells of village at the end the Thirty Years War where tradition holds that the bridegroom of the hereditary forester must pass a test in marksmanship in order to claim the forester’s daughter as his bride.  As the opera opens Max (Špicer), who is in love with Agathe (Meghan Lindsay), daughter of the forester Cuno (Olivier Laquerre), is racked with frustration because for weeks he has been unable to land a single shot and thus fears he may lose Agathe’s hand at the marksmanship trial.  The ridicule of the villagers only causes his frustration to turn to despair. 

Among the villagers is the strange man Caspar (Vasil Garvanliev) who is drawn to Max because he senses in Max’s despair a potential victim.  As we later discover, Caspar has sold his soul to the devil via the intermediary demon Samiel (Curtis Sullivan).  Caspar hopes that if he can provide Samiel with a new victim that Samiel will grant him three more years to live.  Without knowing this, Max agrees to meet Caspar in the haunted Wolf’s Glen, where Caspar will show him how to cast seven magic bullets.  Six never miss the target of the marksman, but the seventh hits the target of Samiel’s choice.  We naturally fear that Max’s involvement with black magic will imperil not only his winning of Agathe but his own soul.  If the story sounds familiar it is because in 2008 the Tarragon Theatre presented November Theatre’s production of the musical The Black Rider (1990) by Tom Waits, Robert Wilson and William S. Burroughs which is based on Der Freischütz.   

Director Marshall Pynkoski and his costume designer Martha Mann alter the opera significantly only in moving its setting from the 17th century to the period of the opera’s composition.  Mann’s gorgeous peasant costumes are in dark green and various earth tones while the Hermit is no bent old man in sackcloth but rather in his high-collared frock coat looks like the lone figure from The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818) by Caspar David Friedrich who has just stepped from the frame.  Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg choreographs not only the numerous folk dances in Weber’s score but also all boisterous chorus, except for the final hymn.  We may not be familiar with early Romantic opera – Beethoven’s Fidelio (1814) is the one we know best – but Zingg’s choreography relates the work to a genre we are more familiar with – namely, Romantic ballet from Adolphe Adam’s Giselle (1841) through Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker (1892).     

Where Zingg’s choreography has the greatest impact is in the Wolf’s Glen scene.  Dancers portray Max’s agonized visions of his mother and Agathe and thus give them greater presence.  The demonic Samiel is not alone but accompanied by a cadre of similarly clad spirits which only serves to magnify his power.  In a break from period costume and contrary to traditional images of demons, Mann dresses Samiel and his fiends in chest-baring unitards matching the dancers’ skin colour.  This simulated nudity is the strongest interpretative clue that civilization merely covers up rather than eliminates the potential for human evil – a point underlying the Hermit’s outlawing of the tradition of a marksmanship test to prove bridegrooms worthy.

Opera Atelier breaks new ground in its staging with its extensive use of Raha Javanfar’s projections in the Wolf’s Glen scene.  Onto the enormous stage-high disc of a full moon across which clouds continually scud, Javanfar projected a series of terrifying images drawn from the paintings of Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), the Anglo-Swiss painter whose most famous work is The Nightmare (1781).  The images move into and out of focus, morph into one another and sometimes swirl into and out of place as was the practice in entertainments know as phantasmagoria popular at the turn of the 18th century where magic lantern slides would be projected into rooms of smoke.  This and Bonnie Beecher’s fantastic lighting effects make it seem as if we enter not the Wolf’s Glen as much as the mind of a man going insane.         

Špicer gives an outstanding performance as Max.  He clearly delineates the character’s descent from frustration to despair to near madness in Wolf’s Glen.  Špicer has a sinewy tenor with heft and ringing top notes.  His vocal shading in Max’s aria of despair, “Durch die Wälder,” is exquisitely detailed. 

In contrast his beloved Agathe is sung by soprano Meghan Lindsay with an inwardness that rather more suits Lieder than opera.  The creamy tone that makes her upper register so beautiful seems to vanish in her lower register.  Far more successful is soprano Carla Huhtanen as Agathe’s companion Ännchen, the sole source of comedy in the opera.  The pertness of her delivery, the clarity of her tone and the precision of her coloratura makes each of her arias a delight.

As the disaffected Caspar, baritone Vasil Garvanliev delivers his English dialogue and sings his German arias rather too emphatically as if trying to make Caspar a larger character than he is.  In the Wolf’s Glen scene, however, he gives powerful portrait of the soul of a weak man in anguish.  If he had allowed some of this anguish to inform his initial portrayal of Caspar it would have been much more effective and would better explain how Max could view him as a kindred spirit.  The role of Samiel is spoken, but bass-baritone Sullivan gives his words an imposing quality so in keeping with the music that they seem to be sung.  As the Hermit, Gustav Andreassen immediately commands the stage with his leonine presence and his immense, seemingly fathomless bass in his impressive narrative “Leicht kann des Frommen Herz auch wanken”.             

               

The Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra has been expanded to forty to reproduce the exact composition of Weber’s 40-member band with the exclusion of any onstage instruments save for one violinist.  Conductor David Fallis draws playing of precision and vitality creating a wonderfully autumnal richness of sound, especially from the augmented brass section.  Opera Atelier has no intention of forsaking its home ground of the baroque, but the triumph of this production shows that the company is ready to conquer a whole new century.             

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review will appear in Opera News within the next few months.

Photo: Artists of Atelier Ballet in the Wolf’s Glen scene. ©2012 Bruce Zinger.

For tickets, visit www.operaatelier.com.