Carl Maria von Weber - Oberon Overture

Costume design for a character from Carl Maria von Weber’s opera Oberon, premiered in London in 1826.

Costume design for a character from Oberon by Carl Maria von Weber. The opera was a great success at its London premiere in 1826, despite being rarely performed today.

Oberon (or The Elf King’s Oath) is a three-act romantic opera and the final operatic work of Carl Maria von Weber. It was composed for London’s Covent Garden Theatre—not the present-day building—and premiered on April 12, 1826, under the composer’s own direction. The opera was met with enthusiastic acclaim from the audience. Tragically, Weber was already gravely ill, and the intense demands of the production are believed to have hastened his death in London on June 5, 1826.

The libretto, written by James Robinson Planché, was based on the German poem Oberon by Christoph Martin Wieland, itself inspired by the medieval French epic romance Huon de Bordeaux. Despite its imaginative subject matter, Oberon, like Euryanthe, has never secured a stable place in the operatic repertoire, even though its overture remains a beloved and frequently performed concert piece.

Some characters share names with figures from A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, yet the plot follows a distinctly different narrative path.

The opera is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets (in A), two bassoons, four horns (in D and A), two trumpets (in D), three trombones (alto, tenor, and bass), timpani, and strings.

The overture opens with the gentle intonation of three notes associated with Oberon’s magical horn. This ethereal introduction unfolds through muted string phrases, shimmering woodwind cascades, and a serene contrast to the opera’s triumphant march. A sudden full-orchestra chord breaks the spell of this enchanted opening, propelling the music forward.

As the rhythm relaxes intermittently, the horn call returns, leading into the theme of a significant aria. This melody is first entrusted to the solo clarinet and later taken up and developed by the violins with remarkable lyricism. In the stormy central section, fragments of the theme are hurled forward with mounting intensity. The recapitulation concludes with an expansive statement of the central theme in the violins, brilliantly reinforced by the full woodwind section.

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