Oberon. Carl Maria von Weber
2005; Oxford University Press; Volume: 21; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/oq/kbi064
ISSN1476-2870
Autores Tópico(s)Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory
ResumoThe stage works of Carl Maria von Weber get a lot of respect. What they don’t get is performances. Given their abundance of tunefulness and showcasing solos, Weber’s operas should be big box office everywhere in the world. But with their problematic librettos and scenic demands (the spooky Wolf’s Glen scene in Der Freischütz begs for the visual wizardry of a Steven Spielberg), they have never really caught on outside of Weber’s homeland and have virtually disappeared even there. Indeed, the Earl of Harewood has fulminated that “Weber is one of the great composers of opera, and it is little short of scandalous that most opera-goers outside Germany have not witnessed a stage performance of his work.”1 Weber has had a spotty but distinguished history at America’s leading opera house. The Metropolitan gave the U.S. premiere of Euryanthe—which The New Kobbé’s Opera Book calls “the most consistent and ambitious of all Weber’s operas”—in 1887, with a starry cast including Lilli Lehmann, Max Alvary, Marianne Brandt, and Emil Fischer under Anton Seidl’s baton. But eventually, despite a new production in 1914–15 featuring Frieda Hempel, Johannes Sembach, Margarete Ober, and Hermann Weil, with Arturo Toscanini on the podium, the work received only nine more airings before vanishing for good. Similarly, Der Freischütz has long been Weber’s most popular work, but it took almost a century (from 1884 to 1972) for the Met to rack up a mere thirty performances.
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