The last act opens like its predecessors in Cuno's house, where Agathe is dressing for her wedding. She still is dis traught and tells Anna of a dream in which she fancied herself a white dove and was fired at by her lover. As the dove fell she was herself again and a great bird of prey lay dying at her feet. Her cousin attempts to divert her thoughts and is assisted in this by the arrival of the brides maids. But all is undone when the newcomers open the box which is to contain the bride's garland, and find that by mistake a funeral wreath has been sent. Sadly Agathe bethinks her of the peasant's consecrated roses and, wearing them, she goes away with her attendants to the Prince's camp, where the shooting contest is to be held and where Max is to win her. Only the seventh bullet remains to Max, for three of them Caspar has beguiled from him and three others he has used in the morning. The Prince, who has witnessed his three marvelous feats of marksmanship, bids him to be of good cheer and confidence and, pointing out a white dove, gives him the signal to fire. The shot goes wild and Caspar and Agathe both sink to the ground. The girl, however, is unhurt. The holy roses have saved her but the bullet flying past her has buried itself in Caspar's heart instead.
When they have borne the body away, Max confesses that his three shots of the morning were of malign origin. The indignant sovereign pronounces upon him sentence of banishment but moved by the pleas of Agathe and Cuno, he leaves the matter to the decision of a hermit, who justly proposes that in view of his past uprightness he be granted a year of trial and, if he passes it successfully, that Agathe then shall become his bride.
" Der Freischiitz " is epoch-making in that it was the opera which completed the establishing of the romantic school, and which gave Germany a distinctively national opera. All Germany rose to acclaim the merit and charm of the work, delighted with its freshness and with the note of romance and mystery which echoed through its music. There is displayed in it that fine imaginative power which Weber possessed in high degree. The great scenes are treated with a dramatic understanding and sympathy not before equaled. The music of the Incantation scene is of a weirdness and daring musical power until then unknown and throughout the score may be noticed unmistakable evidence of the leit-motif used later with notable effect by 'Weber's great successor, admirer and, in a certain measure, disciple, Wagner.
The overture is a masterpiece of its kind, and is known and admired the world over. Without doubt Weber intended in this to give the audience a clue to the nature of the opera which follows, for again in the course of the opera we hear the same themes used for the solos.
The overture opens with a rather slow movement; the horn assumes the role of solo description, and speaks of cheerfulness, calmness, and serenity, such as we later find to be typical of the forester's life. Soon, however, we feel there is a dissatisfaction, an unrest, and the strings begin a soft tremolo which grows in strength and suggests passion, and then gradually, softly, dies away. Now the violin and 'cello take up the discourse, and plaintively tell us of troubles which are about to beset our hero, and the solo instruments in a more spirited movement depict the rage, the madness of his despair, plaintively wail of hope lessness, and at last the entire orchestra takes up the theme. It is this theme that is heard in the first act in Max's solo. A serious, contemplative passage follows,
which terminates in victorious music, and we feel some one has overcome, and at the same time sorrowfully, that one has been overcome, for the music does not speak as it does later of glorious triumph ; in it there is faltering, and it is only might conquering for the nonce. Then comes an indescribable haunting passage as though one were being pursued by an evil spirit, and we hear it again when Caspar is successful in securing Max's promise to use the charmed bullets.
Relief from these rather tense passages comes in the form of a beautiful air, one which occurs in the second act, when Agathe hears her lover coming, and involun tarily the audience relaxes with the change from the gloom of the minor key to that of the major, and feels as the composer intended, that the pure love of Agathe is to triumph over all evil.
But again, as though to remind us that trouble is ever present and difficulties always to be overcome, the orchestra takes up the gloomy theme, again in a minor key, that of B flat, but soon modulates into D sharp minor, and now the 'cello seems to pursue the soft tremolo of the violin with sure and triumphant modulation, exulting again over Caspar's victory, but only for a moment, and then pure sweet tones of Agathe's love song are heard and bid all doubt and terror flee, love will conquer ; and we are not disturbed even by the return of the passagi telling of Max's fear and feelings of suspense. For the closing movement there seems to be a discussion among the instruments, a soft tremolo among the strings, a wail ing among the winds, a solemn warning from the drums, and then a transition of keys and the melody of the heroine with sprightly, even brilliantly gay passages worked in, brings the overture to an end, and prophesies the end of the sorrows of the hero and heroine and the beginning of their life of love and joy.
Another beautiful solo given to the tenor is that of " Jetzt is wohl ihr Fenster offen" (" Now, methinks beside her lattice "). Other remarkable passages are Caspar's demoniac aria "Triumph! die Rache gelingt " (" Revenge, my triumph is nigh "); Anna's merry "Kommt ein schlanker Bursch " ("Let a gallant youth "), which tells of the joy of possessing a gallant lover, in the last verse of which Agathe joins; the heroine's beautiful recitative and aria " Leise, leise " ("Softly sighing"), in which she meditates upon the loveliness of the night scene she views from her balcony and whose beauty calls from her an ex pression, in melody, of her great love. The accompani ment for this is especially charming, picturing a summer star-lit night, the whispering of the breezes among the trees, and lending a dreamy hazy color to the voice of the maiden.
" Der Freischiitz," after a successful season in Berlin, was produced in Paris as " Rabin des Bois," with libretto by Castile Blaze, and with a number of changes which seem not to have bettered it, for Berlioz later wrote new recitatives, Pacini accurately translated it into French, and as " Le Franc Archer" at the Royal Academy of Paris, it won greater praise. England changed its title to "The Seventh Bullet," inserted ballads to please her audiences, and it was heard in English at the Opera House of London, and later in Italian as "II Franco ar ciero " at Covent Garden. Thus it has always been and will in all probability remain an universally popular opera.