Der Freischütz: Difference between revisions

* [[The Cavalier Years]]: The setting of the action, specifically at the time of the [[Thirty Years War]].

* [[Evil Sounds Deep]]: Played straight with Caspar, but averted in that Cuno and the Hermit are both basses. The devil Samiel is a speaking rôle, but his voice is usually rather high-pitched as well.

* [[Flower Motifs]]: The white roses, that symbolize not only Agathe's own purity and goodness, but also the heavenly powers of whom the Hermit is the representative.

* [[Holy Roman Empire]]: Strictly speaking, the setting is in the Bohemian Forest, but in this case "Bohemian" is '''not''' to be taken as "ethnically Czech". Kind deliberately left the exact setting vague, although it would most likely be geographically Czech or Hungarian today (possibly what would later be known as the Sudetenland). Nevertheless, the opera was definitely intended as a celebration of German nationalism, of which Weber was an ardent supporter.

* [[I Don't Like the Sound of That Place]]: Anyone going to a place called "The [[Big Badass Wolf|Wolf]]'s Glen" is just asking for trouble.

* [[Karmic Death]]: Caspar suggests that Samiel use the cursed seventh bullet to kill Agathe. Wanna guess whom it hits instead?

* [[Leitmotif]]: A number of themes recur as emotional markers, though the only true [[Leitmotif]] is the famous "Samiel diminished seventh" <ref>Put very simply, a seventh is a chord consisting of two notes seven steps apart on an octave (''e.g.'', A [[la]] and G [[sol]]); a diminished seventh lowers one of the notes half a tone (''e.g.'', A and G flat). You may know it as the "heroine tied up on the train tracks" sonority.</ref>, which heralds the devil's arrival.

* [[Our Monsters Are Different]]: At least according to Wagner, the Wolf's Glen is haunted by monsters of deformed shape, indeterminate between [[Frogs and Toads|toad]], [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent|snake, and lizard]].

* [[Owl Be Damned]]: A monstrous owl watches over the Wolf’s Glen, and others appear during the incantation.

* [[Religion Is Magic]]: Or, at least, religion is able to counteract magic.

* [[Saintly Church]]: The holy hermit, who gives Agathe the sacred white roses that (possibly) deflect the cursed seventh bullet, and who suggests probation rather than banishment for Max.