The Golden Cockerel

Synopsis
To obtain the hand of the beautiful Agathe, the hunter Max must win a shooting competition. Kaspar, a jealous hunter, joins forces with the evil Samiel to try and prevent him and convinces Max to use magic bullets. But in order to make them, black magic must be used, and so, for Agathe, Max lets himself be trapped by dark forces.

Wild aroma
With Der Freischütz, created in 1821, Weber brought German opera into the romantic era, foreshadowing the future ambitions of Wagner and Rossini. More than that, Der Freischütz is a masterpiece, acclaimed by Hoffman and Debussy, among others. Berlioz praised the "wild aroma" of a work where the orchestra, placed at the heart of the piece, plays a role as fundamental as that of the singers in the narration of the work, the characterisation and the general atmosphere. Weber's lush score brings as much to the scenes of the villagers’ daily life with its playful refrains as it does to the supernatural power of the black magic scenes with their clamouring strings and growling brass. Director Tcherniakov, who has experience with both epic and fantastical Russian works as well as the Romantic repertoire, returns to the Opéra de Lyon to present his vision of this horrifying curse with its burning romanticism.