Marschner was the most important German opera composer between Weber and Wagner, or so wikipedia asserts (though he overlapped substantially with both of them). His work doesn't seem to have endured very well, though. Actually, one of his other operas, Der Vampyr, currently has a production on operavision, but looking at the description and the youtube comments, it's clear that it's gonna be a tremendously irritating Regietheater thing. Look, if you HAVE to inflict your vision on operas like that, you could at least have the courtesy to restrict it to well-known pieces, where people have other options. I may see it eventually, but I am resigned to the fact that I'll be experiencing the opera itself through a glass darkly.
Well, I did see this, his most successful work. Ol' Heiling (never referred to as "Hans" in the libretto, that I remember) is a prince in the Underworld, but he's in love with a human woman, Anna, so he departs, in spite of his mother the queen's protests. He brings a magic book to let him keep his power. Little skip forward in time, and Heiling is an established rich guy and engaged to Anna--although she's kind of ambivalent about the whole thing, especially due to his violent, childish jealousy. He is particularly jealous of Konrad, Anna's long-time suitor. Bad times. Anna is alone walking home through the forest at night, knowing she loves Konrad rather than Heiling, when the spirits of the underworld appear to tell her that Heiling is not a human. Anna freaks out and faints, but Konrad finds her and brings her home. Heiling appears, and there is a confrontation. He stabs Konrad and leaves, but then learns that, doh, he didn't actually kill him--the wound was superficial. And now he's going to marry Anna. Doggonit. The marriage ceremony happens and everyone's happy, until Heiling appears for his revenge. Things look bleak until the queen appears and begs her son to back down. So she does, and they return to the underworld.
It does not get more German-romantic than this, I will tell you that much. The improbable happy ending strongly reminded me of Der Freischütz. So you know the sort of thing to expect, and let me tell you, as an exemplar of that sort of thing, this is really, really good. The first act does get off to a bit of a bumpy start, not really making clear what the characters are supposed to be and what their motivations are. Things pick up a lot thereafter, however, and there's a lot of hella dramatic music here, including a really eerie child chorus of underworld spirits. As far as the cast goes, I especially liked Cornelia Wulkopf as Anna's mother. A contralto, no less! Well, wikipedia calls her a "mezzo-soprano and contralto;" I'm not sure what that means. Is it someone whose voice moves from one type to another as they age, or someone who can just switch at will? I didn't know that was legal. But AT ANY RATE, a big-ish contralto role! Yeah! She has a really great, spooky scene at home worrying about her daughter's non-appearance.
It's true that I'm not quite watching operas at the furious rate I once did; the state of this blog is an accurate indication of that. But! That doesn't mean I'm not into them anymore, and an opera like this is enough to stir up the blood and remind you how much you like the genre.
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