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The performance is 30 years old now, but the recording at its frequent best would draw high praise even today. The quality is not quite 100% consistent - now and again passages for full orchestra lack the spaciousness and depth that are so remarkable at many other points, and there is just a hint of distortion on Janowitz's high notes in her big scena in Act II, but these are quibbles. Far more representative of the general proficiency in the recording is the wonderful romantic aura round the even more wonderful horn playing near the start, the really terrific sense of eerie menace in the wolves' glen (with the full terror of Samiel reserved for the end) and the perfect fidelity given in general to the singing, both solo and chorus. Both Janowitz and Mathis sing like angels from on high, the huntsmen in chorus are the nimblest and most accomplished such a body that I ever heard, and the orchestral tone is gorgeous too. All this demanded full justice from the recording staff, and they have done it proud.
I personally go along with Kleiber's handling of the score in practically every way. When steadiness and calm are called for we get them - the slow start to the overture could hardly be better, nor could Agathe's great cavatina in Act III, sublimely done by Janowitz. However this reading has a spring in its step, and that as much as anything is what I love about it. It helps, obviously, to have virtuoso performers, and I have already drawn attention to the chorus in that respect. For all the Gothic shivers and goings-on, this opera is full of joie de vivre, or whatever the German is for that. Like Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Bizet, Weber was taken away from us too soon, another sacrifice to consumption. No composer's music could be less suggestive of approaching death that his. His orchestral scoring alone, deeply admired by no less a master of that art than Berlioz, is a celebration of life by itself. His melodic gift is one of the greatest there has ever been, stronger in my view than Mendelssohn's and up there with that of Berlioz and that of Verdi himself. This is what an adequate realisation of this work must bring out, not just the picturesque horrors. On this set you will hear some genuinely spontaneous-sounding laughter for one thing, and the true and vital gusto from the peasants, huntsmen and the rest of them. Obviously 'characterisation' in a lightweight and fairy-tale parallel like this to the Faust theme is broad-brush, but where this score excels is in its varied and intensely dramatic delineation of situations. This is something else the conductor must present with the utmost clarity and vividness, and I can hardly imagine it done better than it is done here. And a special mention must be made of the magnificent realisation of the scene with the hermit (der fromme Klausner for initiates) -- credit even-handedly to Kleiber and to Franz Crass.
I love dear Schumann and I love his Manfred, especially in the realisation by Beecham, but I could only sigh to think of what Weber might have done with that theme. We should be grateful for what we've got, I suppose. The entire cast cover themselves with glory, but pride of place goes to the two sopranos. Peter Schreier is what I sometimes think of as a 'mezzo-tenor', something like Mark Padmore. Theo Adam is a Wotan and a Sachs that I particularly like because of my own personal interpretation of those roles, but even those who think him lightweight in Wagner surely must have no such reservations about his Kaspar. The men are all fine, but it's the women here who make the really big impression - them and the orchestra. Not to mention the chorus and the conductor. Nor do I overlook the recording personnel.
I first heard the Wolf's Glen scene in an EMI sampler LP of operatic highlights and still feel that it is the most atmospheric ever recorded - better than the Kleiber version which, although still effective, doesn't quite capture the Gothic chill and has a rather ordinary-voiced Samiel compared with the hard, abrasive Fritz Hoppe for Keilberth. Where Kleiber particularly scores is in the crowd scenes with the dances and choruses. It was a on a remainder bin LP - only the first LP of the set - that I heard his overture and the opening scene with its natural-sounding crowd noises, mocking laughter and galumphing peasants struck me as enormously invigorating music-making; Kleiber takes the whole thing at a clip and really injects life into proceedings. Keilberth is steadier and more staid, with the grander-sounding BPO but his is also an affectionate and beautifully played account.
I give Kleiber five stars even though I readily admit an antipathy to Peter Schreier's throaty, nasal tenor. I really cannot comprehend how some find his pinched voice beautiful but he is impassioned and characterful here, sounding really desperate as Max, so I let it pass. Schock has a more conventionally baritonal heroic tenor and sings agreeably if a tad blandly. Dramatic verisimilitude is enhanced by the fact that Keilberth's singers deliver their own dialogue whereas for Kleiber a very truncated script is employed and actors are used, with the usual mismatch between singing and speaking voices. That abridgement also means that some famous lines are cut, such as that quoted by Bismarck in the Reichstag in 1849: "Glaubst du, dieser Adler sei dir geschenkt?" ("Do you think you get this eagle for nothing?").
Regarding the leading ladies in both versions, all are superb. There is little to choose between two of the loveliest German post-war sopranos in Elisabeth Grümmer and Gundula Janowitz, both of whom were lyric sopranos who could sing the lighter Wagner roles and to whose silvery voices I could listen all night. Both Lisa Otto and Edith Mathis are delightful as Ännchen. I prefer Karl Christian Kohn's mostly focused, black-voiced Kaspar for Keilberth to Theo Adam (sometimes unkindly known by his non-admirers as "Mr Wobble", but passable for Kleiber). Both hermits are impressive, even if a younger-voiced Franz Crass is steadier than the veteran Gottlob Frick - but both bring the requisite kindly gravitas to the role. The Leipzig chorus is livelier and interpretatively freer than the more "operatic" Berliners; the latter are less animated in their hailing of Kilian and barracking of Max but only comparatively speaking and they respond credibly in little incidents such as when Max draws a knife on Kilian. Both conductors relish the Bauer element in the music. There are a few clumsy tape edits on the EMI recording and its 1958 stereo sound, although fine, is less immediate than the fuller but slightly toppy DG recording from 1973.
DG have committed a firearms solecism in depicting what is clearly a more modern, double-barrelled shotgun; a marksman like Max would have been using some kind of primitive, early 19C rifle capable of firing only bullets (magic or otherwise), not shot. I cannot choose between these two admirable versions but can endorse both as excellent, faithful renditions which do honour to a seminal German opera.
Turning to this recording: first, I like Freischuetz. For me it is something of the style of The Magic Flute - my favourite opera - because it is in German, has some passages of spoken dialogue (which can make the plot easier to follow than all arias or recitative): I suppose that technically makes it Singspiel, and has a plot involving magic. The second reason I like it is that the music is genuinely enjoyable and has some original and striking passages. Thirdly, to my ear this is an excellent performance - much better than the Harnoncourt which is my other CD version of Freischuetz. What more can I say?
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