Hunters Bride

Subject Matter and Time

Carl Maria von Weber (1786 - 1826) composed the romantic opera “Der Freischütz” between 1810 and 1821. He finished the main part of the opera in Dresden and in his country house in Hosterwitz, not faraway from Dresden. Weber had already been fascinated by the subject matter in 1810. He discovered it in a collection of ghost stories by Johann August Apel.

For a long time, Weber’s opera remained a draft entitled “Die Jägersbraut” (The Hunter’s Bride). Weber begins the opus at the end of the Napoleonic wars, suspends composing during the Congress of Vienna, and finishes the opera between 1817 and 1821. Many references to the happenings of the contemporary time can be found in the “Freischütz”. Carl Maria von Weber worked as a Saxon director of music at the State Opera in Dresden. Saxony was on the side of the Emperor throughout all the Napoleonicwars. The experiences of Napoleon crowning himself emperor along with the occupation and the territorial shattering as a consequence of the Congress of Vienna are all included in the music.

The panorama of Saxon history in the times of the Napoleonic wars shows the humanistic and socialhistorical background of the opus in context to the “Freischütz” opera, and gives the classical opera a new, pan-European perspective. A Gothic Novel