"Hit the bull's eye," rejoiced Carl Maria von Weber after the premiere of his opera DER FREISCHÜTZ in 1821 in the Royal Theater in Berlin on the Gendarmenmarkt. His series of images, a mixture of hunter folklore, ghosts and jealousy drama, struck a nerve of the times. Numbers such as the Hunters' Chorus and the Song of the Maiden's Wreath became popular hits. At the same time, German romantic opera was born. The popular idyll of a Biedermeier village community is contrasted with an unfathomable world of spirits, culminating in the horror-romantic fever curves of the famous Wolfsschlucht scene.
The horrors of the Thirty Years' War linger in the story of Max, a young hunter who surrenders himself to dark powers in order to pass a shooting test. Only then can he win his beloved Agathe as his bride - and even receives his father-in-law's hereditary forestry estate as a dowry. His fear of failure drives him into the hands of his shady friend Kaspar, who tricks Max into secretly casting magical bullets that are supposed to ensure his victory: six of them hit, but the devil directs the seventh bullet according to his will.
House director Tomo Sugao stages the timeless story of young people on the verge of adulthood, each seeking different ways out of a community held together by malice, peer pressure, rigid rules and repressive piety.
