Prom 73: Weber arr. Berlioz - Der Freischütz

Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his team have recently been staging Berlioz’s rarely performed take on Weber’s Der Freischütz at the Opéra Comique in Paris. As originally composed, the work has spoken dialogue in German but, for the Paris production of 1841, Berlioz replaced the dialogue with recitative as well as adding the ballet expected by French audiences at the time.

This is the most familiar part of his revision today, an orchestration of Weber’s Invitation to the Dance. Tonight’s rendition of the complete opera in Berlioz’s reconfiguration is its first outing at the Proms.