Berlioz frequently raged at fellow musicians who “interfered with” musical masterpieces and failed to follow precisely their composers’ instructions. One such recipient of his wrath was Castil-Blaze, who in 1824 had mounted a long-running production at the Théâtre de l’Odéon in Paris of Weber’s Der Freischütz (under the title Robin des bois) that Berlioz described as a “gross travesty, hacked and mutilated in the most wanton fashion”. That Berlioz should want to be involved in 1841 in a more authentic production at the Opéra, using a fresh translation of the libretto by Émilien Pacini, is understandable. But, given his attitude towards musical purity, why on earth did he write recitatives to replace the passages of spoken text that punctuate the opera?
The explanation is provided in Berlioz’s Memoirs: “In the Freischütz”, he wrote, “the musical numbers are interspersed with prose dialogue, as in our opéras comiques, whereas the conventions of the Opéra require every word of the dramas or lyric tragedies performed there to be sung.” Without recitatives there could be no production at all at the Opéra. He therefore agreed, but only on condition that “the work was performed in its entirety, without a word or a note being changed”. In addition to the recitatives the Opéra required a ballet to be performed as an entr’acte, for which Berlioz arranged and orchestrated Weber’s Aufforderung zum Tanz under the title L’invitation à la valse.
The production with Berlioz’s recitatives, first performed on 7 June 1841 under the baton of Pantaléon Battu (Habeneck being ill), was a considerable success, and was repeated a further sixty times until 27 April 1846. One other departure from Weber’s score had proved necessary: Rosine Stoltz, in the role of Agathe, had needed to transpose her arias in Acts II and III down a tone and a minor third respectively. The main problem, though, was that the recitatives themselves seemed too long, especially those in the scene between Max and Gaspard at the end of Act I. Even Berlioz had to agree, though he partly blamed the singers for failing to find the appropriate lightness of touch.
By the time the production was revived in 1851 the Opéra had lost patience with Berlioz’s stipulation about preserving the integrity of the opera, and cuts were made in both Weber’s music and Berlioz’s recitatives. Berlioz was called in to approve the latter, and realized that there was little point in complaining. (In fact, the shorter version of the recitatives – provided in Appendix IV of volume 22b of the New Berlioz Edition – has much to recommend it as a practical option.) He was more than a little frustrated, however, to find himself widely blamed and even, in 1853, publicly accused in a court of law for the “cuts, suppressions and mutilations”, as he called them, to which the opera had been subjected, which were such that a distinguished member of the audience even attempted to prosecute the Opéra for misrepresentation!
Berlioz also prepared an Italian version of the recitatives for the Königstädtisches Theater, Berlin (where an Italian troupe was employed) in 1849–50 (edited in NBE 22b, Appendix III). He sold the recitatives to Covent Garden, London in 1850 too, where a different Italian translation was used, and where the recitatives were altered to such an extent that when Berlioz attended a performance in May 1851 he was unable to recognize them at all! Further performances incorporating Berlioz’s recitatives were mounted in Valparaiso (1854), Milan (1856), Boston (1860) and Buenos Aires (1864).
Ian Rumbold
Hector Berlioz’s arrangement of Weber’s “Freischütz”
20.02.2010 Theater Trier [Premiere]
Carl Maria von Weber/Hector Berlioz: Der Freischütz
Conductor: Valtteri Rauhalammi, director: Lutz Schwarz