Although written for England, 'Oberon' has never achieved much
popularity in this, or indeed in any country. The fairy music is
exquisite throughout, but the human interest of the story is after all
slight, and Weber, on whom the hand of death was heavy as he wrote the
score, failed to infuse much individuality into his characters. 'Oberon'
was his last work, and he died in London soon after it was produced.
During the last few years of his life he had been engaged in a desultory
way upon the composition of a comic opera, 'Die drei Pintos,' founded
upon a Spanish subject. He left this in an unfinished state, but some
time after his death it was found that the manuscript sketches and notes
for the work were on a scale sufficiently elaborate to give a proper
idea of what the composer's intentions with regard to the work really
were. The work of arrangement was entrusted to Herr G. Mahler, and under
his auspices 'Die drei Pintos' was actually produced, though with little
success.
At the present time the only opera of Weber which can truthfully be said
to belong to the current repertory is 'Der Freischuetz,' and even this is
rarely performed out of Germany. The small amount of favour which
'Euryanthe' and 'Oberon' enjoy is due, as has been already pointed out,
chiefly to the weakness of their libretti, yet it seems strange that the
man to whom the whole tendency of modern opera is due should hold so
small a place in our affections.
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