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Dmitri Tcherniakov updates the "German Romantic Opera" into a modern-day thriller with interesting twists in a musically splendid performance in Munich.

A disappointing staging of Weber's supernatural opera by Compagnie 14:20 in Paris

Hartmann's staging takes a bizarre twist in the end since so far the staging had followed the naïve story very faithfully without any weird implications.

Christian von Götz's production doesn't all work, but he makes a viable, thought-provoking and entertaining show out of Weber's spooky classic.

A feast for the eyes in Zurich, but is the visual stimulation in Herbert Fritsch's production of Der Freischütz just too much?

Weaknesses in the staging did little to dim the musical pleasure of hearing Sir Mark Elder conduct Weber's masterpiece with OAE forces and an impressvee cast

Director Michael Thalheimer staging Weber’s Der Freischütz entirely in the Wolf’s Glen, albeit relocated from a “fearsome forest gorge” to what looks like a badger’s sett. 

Any director taking on Weber’s Der Freischütz faces big challenges. Sándor Zsóter’s production for the Hungarian State Opera takes risks, with very mixed results.

Opera Atelier has made its reputation as a producer of 17th- and 18th-century operas for more than a quarter of a century, based at the elegant Elgin Theatre in Toronto since 2000. This year it has made a leap into another era and another century with a gorgeous production of Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz.

While Weber is widely acknowledged as being of historic importance as the link in the German operatic tradition between Beethoven and Wagner, his operas are rarely staged in England, and even in concert remain a relative novelty. Curious because this is music of the utmost vitality and beauty and at times he surely borders on genius.

The overture to Der Freischütz is a familiar concert warm-up, but the opera itself is a rarer find these days. It wasn't always so. With over fifty performances in the eighteen months following its 1821 Berlin debut, Weber's spooky tale of souls traded for magic bullets was an instant hit.