Episode 011: Der Freischütz with Garrett Schumann

In which a guy gets performance anxiety about a shooting contest and takes bulletmaxxing advice from the sketchiest dude alive. Composer, scholar, performer, and writer Garrett Schumann joins us to discuss Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz, which holds a storied place in history as the “first” German Romantic opera and a less-discussed place as the origin story for German nationalism.

Additional topics include: Patton Oswalt and horror movies, Faust derangement syndrome, the Paris Commune, and an anthology series pitch for Rian Johnson.

Follow Garrett on Bluesky.

---

Simon says:

“It is a little hard today to imagine the storm created by the first performance some 140 years ago, of Weber’s romantic opera, Der Freischütz.… a story of romantic love between commoners, of supernatural evil, with a devil for one of the characters, and a scene in the mysterious Wolf’s Glen.”

(100 Great Operas. and Their Stories)

---

Der Freischütz: The story

• Act I

• Act II

• Act III

• Act IV

  .

---

Recordings cited

• Lise Davidsen, Sofia Fomina, Andreas Schager, Alan Held, Markek Janowski: Der Freischütz (Pentatone, 2019)

• Polina Pasztircsák, Kateryna Kasper, Maximilian Schmitt, Dimitry Ivashchenko, René Jacobs: Der Freischütz (Harmonia Mundi, 2022)

• Johanni Van Oostrum, Chiara Skerath, Stanislas de Barbeyrac, Vladimir Baykov, Laurence Equilbey: The Freischütz Project (Erato, 2021)

• Sara Jakubiak, Christina Landshamer, Michael König, Georg Zeppenfeld, Christian Thielemann: Der Freischütz (Unitel Classica, 2015)

---

Further reading

• Stephen C. Meyer: Carl Maria von Weber and the Search for a German Opera (2002)

• Benedict Anderson: Imagined Communities (1983)

• Jeffrey K. Wilson: The German Forest Nature, Identity, and the Contestation of a National Symbol, 1871-1914 (2016)

---

Playlist

---

As a Bookshop.org affiliate, Decanonized may earn from qualifying purchases made from the books linked on this page.

This helps finance the show and also supports independent bookstores. We occasionally use other links (including Amazon when necessary—especially for DVD recordings and out of print books), but do not have an affiliate account with Amazon. Eat the rich.