DER FREISCHUTZ IN GERMAN.
THE first performance of Der Freischiitz in this country forined a striking feature in its musical history. WEBER, like PURCELL and MOZART, died young; and at the time when his fame was spreading over his native land, the intercourse. between England and Germany, so long interrupted by war, was not of that frequent and every-day kind which now subsists ; nor had it entered • the head of the most keen and plodding German speculator that a Saxon band might again meditate an invasion of our shores with the probability of success. Still the fame of Der Freischiaz went abroad into all lands ; and we recollect the triumph with which Messrs. BOOSEY and Co. produced to our notice the first copy of its score. The managers at Drury Lane and Covent Garden looked at it again and again. There must be some thing very extraordinary in a work which had excited such a sensation in Germany. It Was 'submitted to BiSitop and T. COOKE, the experienced and skilful caterers for the two houses. Their opinion was the same: they admired the music, but it was not suited to the taste of an English audience. And we are not inclined, even after the splendid success of the opera, • to question the soundness of their judgment. There is no instance in the records of the English Opera, of music of so profound and elaborate a character having been attempted. They might fairly conclude, judging from all past experience, that the opera would fail, and that the English playgoers were not ripe for it. Its very excellences—which no man .in the kingdom is better able than BISHOP to appreciate,—would be, to him, so many reasons why it should fail. Among other managers, ARNOLI5 looked at it. ARNOLD is neither a musician nor a poet; but, the son of one of the cleverest composers of his day, he has acquired a certain musical tact, which enabled him to discern that there was something in Der Freischiitz that might hit the public taste, and if so, that it would hit hard. His early and long acquaintance with theatrical business, added to a tolerably ready wit, and an acquired ability to rhyme, enabled him to assist in the production of the opera at his theatre. He had good sense enough to know, that to give it a chance of success, it was necessary to have it strongly cast and well performed. BRAHAM was its hero ; and if ever there was a man capable of feeling and of making others feel WEBER'S music, he was the man. Its success was, notwithstanding, at the first, far from decided. After the first night's performance, the most experienced judges of dramatic music were posed ; and scarcely any of them dared venture a decided opinion on its fate. However, by degrees, the leaven began to work, and in no very long time the whole mass of the metropolis was impregnated. .Der Freischlitz was heard by bits and snatches in every room, street, and square. The playwrights of the two theatres were incontinently set to work, and great preparations were made for the production of the opera which they had both rejected, and which was now filling the treasury of the English Operahouse. But we must do ARNOLD the justice to say that it has never been so well performed as at his theatre.
WEBER'S triumph was completed by his arrival in this country. The managers of Covent Garden had given him five hundred guineas to write an opera, after having refused one of at least equal merit, saich they might have bought for two ; while the crowds which filled that theatre, not to hear him perform, but merely to see him beat time, proved how deep and intense a hold he had fastened upon the public attention. And, to this day, the overture to Der Freischiitz is hardly evsr well played without an encore. The high reputation of this most extraordinary work, and the increasing love for foreign music of all kinds, we presume were the motives which impelled Mr. Scalia% to venture upon the speculation of bringing over a German operatic company. It is a speculation which we anticipate will fail. The Germans do not excel in singing. Their language is unharmonious, and hence their best writers have chosen the Italian or the Latin, for the most part, as the vehicles for their vocal music. MOZART'S Masses. and Operas and HAYDN'S Masses are sufficient proofs Of his. The German company Opened at Covent Garden on Wednesday night with the two first acts of Der Freischiitz. We presume this was as much as they thought it safe to begin with. Max (our Rodolph) was performed by Mr. ROSNER. Of this gerttleman's singing we have before spoken, and not in very favourable terms. On the present occasion he discovered more vigour and animation. Mr. SCHUTZ was the Caspar. He acted the part admirably—far, very far better, than we have ever seen it played. Our Caspars have all had a spice of dandyism in them ; but Scaiirz is a thoroughgoing hand-in-glove associate of his friend Zamisl. His appearance in the incantation scene was strikingly picturesque. His singing was poor. The drink-: ing-song was carried through by his acting, but "Haste nor lose the favouring hour," was a failure. Agathe was performed by Miss SCHWEITZER. Her pretensions to the character of a prima donna are very slender. Her tone is bad, and her tune often defective. Mrs. ROSNER was the Anucken. She is a better Singer, and altogether a cleverer artiste than Miss SCHWEITZER. One Of her songs (in which she was encored) is omitted in the English version.In the incantation Scene there is a solo of some length, which was sung by Mr. Ros:saa, and which also forms no part of our adaptation. The choruses (the first excepted) were all left out, the attempt to instruct Messrs. TINNEY, Tarr, and Co., in the German language', having failed; and the dramatic effect w thereby much impaired'. The only feature in the piece which could be called new, was the part of Caspar. This was as much better, as the other characters were worse, than we were accustomed to see at the English Operahonse. The •house was very poorly attended. Such is the caprice and folly of those who compose the fashionable world, that if a pleasure can b3 enjoyed by thss multitude in common with them; it is quite a sufficient reason for their 'absence. Import a foreign singer with pretensions no higher than would fit him for Sadler's Wells, and produce him in their own circle, they will crowd to hear and admire him ; but bring over talent of a much higher rank, and exhibit it at the theatres, and not one of Earl GREY'S "order," will think it worth his notice. Mr. Scaiirz will find out, that, fond as the polite world is of any thing in the shape Of foreign talent, it must be produced in a certain way, and confined to a certain set, to secure the patronage of that portion of London society ; while the other portion naturally, like Mango in the Padlock, wish to hear what they can understand. We observed a sprinkling of gentlemen in the pit, with square faces, and a grave, mercantile cast of features, no doubt imported from the foreign houses in the City, who came to luxuriate in the.diublerie of Der Fivischiitz in the richness of the original German, and-who expressed their gratifica tion very potently. The English liOrtiiia.pti-he audience, we must do j _ _themthe justice to say, bore the infliction of two acts of German dial, logue with exemplary patience.
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