As early as the second half of the18th century, German and Austrian composers were exploring their own national operas and trying to create them in the existing form of German operas. Mozart is a rare artistic genius. His operas, whether Italian or German, reached the highest level in Europe at the end of18th century, and even predicted the prospect of19th century musicals. The harem escape and the magic flute are the most successful examples. During the period from the end of 18 century to the first half of 19 century after his death, no matter Germany, Austria, Italy or France, which mainly composed operas, they rarely created works with a high ideological level and artistic level similar to Mozart's operas. Except for the German dialogue and humanitarian theme of Ludwig von Beethoven's Federio (1770-1827), it has become the wealth of German national opera, which is immortal. Other great composers such as franz schubert (1797- 1828), robert schumann (181kloc-0/856) and Felix Mendelssohn (1809-6556). Only Karl Maria von Weber (1786-1826), an outstanding representative of German romantic opera and the pioneer of Wagner's musical, has made outstanding achievements in opera. In his short life, he contributed ten operas and a large number of instrumental works to the world. The most famous ones are Magic Bomb Shooter (182 1) and oberon (1826).
The operas that truly belong to the romantic spirit of19th century are Undine staged by 18 16 in Berlin and The Water Demon by E.TA Hoffmann (1776- 1822). "Ondini" is taken from medieval German folklore, full of magic and magic. It was written by German romantic poet Fridrih F.Fouque. Influenced by romanticism, German literary poetry is interested in supernatural supernatural phenomena, because the intuitive feeling in it has emotional stimulation. The German folk stories collected at that time, whether it was the collection of fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm or the medieval legend "The Ring of Nibelungen", were supernatural stories active in the dark and dense forests of Germany, which were quite different from the classical aesthetics of18th century. French or Italian operas always focus on Greek, Roman mythology or biblical stories.
In the same year (18 16), Spoel (1784- 1859) premiered in Prague, and the theme of the opera was the same as Goethe's poetic drama at the same time. Faust, a legendary figure, has long been known to Germans in the form of folk puppet shows. Faust reached an agreement with the devil to exchange his soul for happiness in the world, which is an eternal theme in German Christian culture: the contest between God and the devil reflects the opposition and struggle between body and soul, matter and spirit, temptation and being saved through the characters in the world. The theme of the German fairy tale Cold Heart, Weber's Magic Bomb Shooter, Wagner's The Wandering Dutchman and even Don Hauser are all related to this. In addition to the choice of theme, Spoel's opera also tried the form of singing opera, using harmony to increase its drama, which had an impact on Weber and later Wagner.
Therefore, Weber's opera "Magic Bomber Shooter" is not so much influenced by Mozart and Beethoven as by Hoffman and Spoel. It is not a heroic realistic theme, but comes from an ancient German folklore. Weber chose the Teutonic legend as the theme, instead of looking for material in the stories of ancient Greece and Rome, as Italian operas often do, which made the German audience feel more cordial. Musically, on the basis of German folk songs and folk dance music, Weber absorbed the advantages of Italian opera in melody, while the advantages of German instrumental music, such as rigorous structure and rich musical instruments, made his opera music higher than his predecessors. In sharp contrast to the Italian and French operas that showed off their singing skills and pursued gorgeous and brilliant effects at that time, the German people felt fresh and cordial. 182 1 In June, his opera Der Freischütz, also known as Freischutz, premiered in the newly-built Berlin Grand Theatre and was a great success. This is the most representative of his 10 operas. The artistic image and musical language of this opera come from German folk, full of romantic temperament, and it is recognized as the first national opera in Germany, marking the birth of German romantic opera. It soon swept the whole of Germany and caused great repercussions. For a time, Weber's name and Freeshooter became the center of gossip. Even primary school students sang wreaths when they got married (the episode of Freeshooter), and fashion items such as "Freeshooter Beer" and "Freeshooter Women's Wear" appeared. Weber has almost become a national hero!
The Magic Bullet Shooter is a play written by Flederick Kinder based on the story in the Spirit Book co-written by Appel and Braun. The main characters in the play are Kuno, the mountain official leader, Agate, cousin An Xin, the young mountain official Max, Caspar the hunter, Samir the magician and Prince Otto. The story took place in the eighteenth century, in Bohemia in the middle of the eighteenth century. This opera tells a beautiful and touching fairy tale. The young hunter Max must win the championship in the shooting competition before he can marry his lover Agate and become a future ranger. So he accepted the temptation of Caspar, the hunter, and went to Wolf Valley in the jungle to make magic bombs. Caspar has sold his soul to Samir, the forest demon. Finally, the bad luck brought by Max's cowardice was alleviated with the help of Agate's pure love and a kind hermit. The theme of the struggle between this supernatural power and human kindness: love is actually a typical theme of German romanticism.
Weber's operas use various means to highlight the nationality and romanticism of this German folklore. 182 1 The stage scenery and costumes for the premiere of the opera are houses in German forest hunting areas, feather hats of hunters and lace skirts of rural girls, which show the simple rural life in Germany. Opera music is full of rich folk life sentiment: the hunter's majestic March, the farmer's rough Landro dance, the village girl's folk chorus, and the female companion An Xin's short song. The most attractive part of this opera is to create a romantic illusion of "Wolf Valley" (Act II). On the stage, dark and dense forests and wild animals appear, accompanied by various wind instruments, timpani, string vibrato and sharp and discordant harmony. The music vividly describes the whole process of Max and Caspar making seven magic bombs. The full play of the orchestra's timbre sets off the mysterious atmosphere of nature.
Another outstanding achievement of this opera is its overture. In the past, the overture of traditional Chinese opera often only played the role of "opening gongs and drums". Even the works of art such as The Wedding of Figaro are not necessarily related to the later opera music in terms of musical image. Even Rossini's overture to The Barber of Seville, which was staged five years earlier than Magic Bullet Shooter, is actually a work by Zhang Guan Li Dai, who moved it out of his other opera Queen Elizabeth. In the overture, the typical musical theme runs through the whole play, and it is also perfected and standardized from Weber. Weber consciously used the contrast techniques of theme, tonality, harmony, texture and timbre to make this overture have a strong romantic color, and combined the logical sonata structure with the opera plot to make the overture predict the conflict and ending of the whole play. The adagio intro symbolizes two worlds, expressing the quiet forest scenery with the timbre of the horn, and the dark and ominous motivation of the timpani, clarinet and cello bass, which is the symbol of Samir's appearance in the opera every time; The presentation part is basically the opposition of two images and two materials. The main body part and the connecting part are connected with the tested Max. The theme of the main part comes from Max's impulsive and desperate aria in the first act: "What dark forces are haunting me? The connection part uses the seventh bullet made in the second act of Wolf Valley, which is the music material that finally shoots at the white dove (the soul of agate). The auxiliary part and the end part are connected by pure and sincere agate. The theme of the vice part adopts Agate's pious prayer in the second act, and the second half of the same song is adopted at the end, that is, Agate's passionate talk: "My heart is surging"; The unfolding part is not long, basically the unfolding of the first kind of materials, and the materials symbolizing agate are faintly displayed; The reproduction department has undergone a special transformation. Samir's motive appears instead of the deputy, which seems to confirm that good and evil are undecided at the beginning of the last scene. After a sudden pause, the passion theme of agate was introduced as the ending, symbolizing the happy ending of the opera. C minor in the overture belongs to Samir's world, and agate is connected with E flat major and C major at the end. The opera overture is so closely related to the plot that it is unique to Weber's Magic Bomb Shooter. Moreover, the overture adopts the technique of "main melody", and uses a special chord minus seven to symbolize Samir's magic, which runs through the whole opera.
One of Weber's great achievements in opera music is the use of explicit motivation. He represents some short musical phrases that have a typical effect on the main characters in the play or the specific drama environment. As long as they appear, they can arouse the audience's association with the characters or the drama environment. In addition, in the aspect of opera band, Weber also made reasonable adjustments to the arrangement of orchestra parts, and he was also the founder of modern opera conducting methods. In the past, the conductor of opera performances was often performed by the composer himself sitting in the orchestra pit. He played a recital accompanied by the clavichord, and at the same time conducted the performances of all the bands and sang on the stage. That's what Handel and Mozart did in those years. Rossini even wrote in his early contract with the Opera House: "Create an opera and accompany the guqin." However, this kind of command mode is difficult to control the whole competition for romanticism and its later opera, where the band is getting bigger and bigger and the mood changes more and more intense. Although Weber himself has a high level of keyboard performance, he is determined to "liberate" himself from the piano bench, stand in front of the band and face the stage, so as to cope freely and command the overall situation. A roll of music that was originally waved in his hand gradually evolved into a small and beautiful baton today.
German opera artists have always paid more attention to the overall harmony and unity of music, drama and even stage art in their works, which actually began to be reflected in the creative practice of Gluck and Mozart, and was further developed and perfected in Weber's era, and had a clear theoretical summary. Commenting on E.T.A Hoffman's opera Narcissus, he wrote: "For opera, the opera that Germans want is of course a conscious and complete work of art, in which the related cooperative aspects are mixed and disappear, forming a new world in the disappearance." Weber's theory and practice became the pioneer of "Gesamtkunstwerk" advocated by Wagner in the future.