Der Freischütz

"I am trying," says director Vicco von Bülow, also known as Loriot, "to take this opera very seriously and to show all its horror, mystery, piousness and the German forest." Germany's most refinedly witty comedian staged "Der Freischütz" in 1988 at the Ludwigsburg Festival. Von Bülow considers the work "a mixture of comedy, drama, romanticism and deep religiousness." Comedy, however, was not the guiding principle of his production. He relates the story like a tale from some romantic picture- book, in a mysterious, symbolic manner. The stars of the performance were, next to the splendid sets reminiscent at times of the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, the excellent singers and brilliant orchestra conducted by Wolfgang Gönnenwein. Among the singers, the most highly applauded were Uwe Heilmannn as Max, Ulrike Sonntag as Ännchen and Nancy Johnson as Agathe.