Here is a pivotal opera in the develop of German romanticism! Please enjoy it! I suppose if I'm talking about works that feel definitively of one country, this is about as German as it gets.
This, of course, is based on the Freischütz legend: six bullets for you, one for the devil. Solid legend. A++++ would read again. The plot of the opera is easily summed up: Max is usually a good marksman, but lately he's on a missing streak, which is especially bad because he's supposed to get married the next day but there's a rule that you can only do that if you pass a shooting test, so he's feeling a little desperate, which is why when Kaspar--who needs to find a sacrifice pronto or his deal with the devil, Samiel, expires and he gets dragged to hell--tempts him to come with him to the forest at midnight to make some of these "free bullets," he goes along. But the next day, at the wedding, he's on the last bullet and instead of hitting the target it flies straight at his fiancée, Agathe. So that's that, except here's the part you might not expect: don't worry, guys! Agathe's fine! She just fell down from the shock! The bullet actually somehow ricocheted off and hit Kaspar! Max confesses what he's done, and the...mayor? MC?...is pissed and wants him exiled, even though all the people beg for his forgiveness. But then a holy hermit appears and tells him that, come on, we all screw up, let he who is without sin &c; let's just give Max a year's probation and if he can manage to go that length without making any more Satanic pacts, he can marry Agathe. Also, let's abolish this shooting test; it's dumb. So all that stuff happens! Turns out the Devil doesn't have much power if deals with him are so easily countermanded, but, I mean, fair enough: it does seem a bit unfair that you can irrevocably damn yourself to hell on a brief impulse. We can of course also see this redemption business in Der Fliegende Holländer and Tannhaüser, as well as Goethe's Faust,but this seems to differ from those in that the hero doesn't even have to die.
I watched this film version, from 1968 (for whatever reason there are three separate copies on youtube, but only one with subtitles) which I thought was quite reasonable. The scene in the woods at night is appropriately atmospheric, which is probably going to be your biggest concern. I think you're going to want a Kaspar who plays up the sinisterness to the hilt, and Gottlob Frick certainly does the job: you don't have to see him do or say anything to know that he's up to no good. I suppose some would quibble with the unsubtlety, but I dug him. Arlene Saunders is good as Agathe, but even better, I think, is Edith Mathis as her friend Ännchen, who brings an Audrey-Hepburn-like charm to the role. I would perhaps suggest that Ernst Kozub as Max is a bit too consistently glum/petulant throughout, but it's a small complaint. I didn't find this one life-changing, but it's certainly worth seeing.
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