About the work
Albert Lortzing's „Der Wildschütz oder Die Stimme der Natur" was premiered in Leipzig in 1842 and is regarded, after „Zar und Zimmermann", as his second principal work. Here too Lortzing wrote both music and libretto, based on August von Kotzebue's comedy „Der Rehbock oder Die schuldlosen Schuldbewußten".
Plot
In a village near a castle, the wedding of the schoolmaster Baculus to the young Gretchen is taking place. Baculus, a passionate hunter, has shot a buck in anticipation — unfortunately on the count's grounds, which will cost him his post. The count and his sister Baroness Freimann are visiting the castle. The baroness disguises herself for fun as a man, gets to know Baculus and decides to tease him. At the grand masked ball a comedy of confusion unfolds: the baroness in men's clothes is taken by Baculus for a student, and she plays along; meanwhile Count von Eberbach flirts with a Baculus disguised as a man, whom he takes for the baroness. As confusion resolves, it has also emerged that the count is not entirely faithful, which his brother Baron Kronthal — the actual „Kronthal" sympathising with Gretchen — cleverly exploits. Finally all couples are correctly paired: Gretchen with Baron Kronthal (who turns out at the end to be the true bridegroom), Baculus back to his teaching post.
Cultural significance
Der Wildschütz is Lortzing's musically richest opera. The billiard quintet scene („Wir armen, armen Mädchen") and the student arias are repertoire classics; the work is regularly performed in Germany — internationally less so than „Zar und Zimmermann". Lortzing's idiom — bourgeois comfort, light-handed melodies, harmless comic complications — represents the height of German Spieloper. Productions at the Gärtnerplatztheater Munich, the Komische Oper Berlin and the Vienna Volksoper keep the work alive.