Hans Heiling is one of that shivery type of being, the supernatural creature who sometimes takes a human form. Various are the tales about him: he may put a village to sleep for a century, or turn an entire wedding-party to stone. In the Third Act of this opera he appears at a wedding, and takes by the hand the bride who at that moment is playing a traditional game of Blind Man's Buff. It gives her quite a turn. But then, in the Second Act, she was going to marry him herself and discovered only in the nick of time that he was 'other', in fact King of the Earth-Spirits. Marschner, who also wrote an opera called Der Vampyr, had a strong feeling for the eldritch, the romantic stirring at the roots of the hair as the forest darkens, the dead leaves crackle and with the snap of a twig the unseen draws closer.
Seriously, it is a very good score. The orchestral writing has all that might be expected of a talented composer who worked with Weber and acknowledged Spontini as a major influence; less predictable is the melodic gift, remarkable in its ready supply. The opera has an inventive scenario and an effective libretto, written by Eduard Devrient who also played the title-role in the premiere. A bold and powerful device, for instance, is the placing of the Overture second: it follows the Prologue which with no more than a few shuddery bars from the orchestra brings an immediate rise of curtain and introduces the Earth-Spirits in their subterranean cave. With admirable directness we are taken straight into the conflict between mother and son, duty and love, the supernatural and Nature. With equally admirable determination Hans breaks free, conceding just two points: if his wreath withers and his heart breaks, he will return. The orchestration signals a motif and we duly await its reappearance in the last scene. That much anticipates Lohengrin; another scene (the Queen's warning in Act 2) includes a clear suggestion of the Todesverkundigung in Die Walkure; and a more speculative bit of forward-linkage is with Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades.
So there is plenty of interest, and plenty to justify a recording, even one that is less than ideal. It is based on two concert performances, with certain detriment to dramatic cohesion and overall 'feel,' as well as matters of detail (so that Konrad's voice does not come from offstage as it should, and the Earth-Spirits audibly rise from their seats before they have been summoned). The singing is of no more than fair quality, the tenor being particularly hard-pressed. Heiling himself is quite a strenuous role for high baritone and Thomas Mohr gives a well-projected account. Certain inflexions tend to place him as 'school of Fischer-Dieskau', and recordings of the principal aria by Joseph Schmidt and Heinrich Schlusnus (1918 and 1935 respectively) provide an unflattering, but not annihilating, historical perspective. Orchestral playing under Ewald Korner is alert and suitably dramatic; recorded sound and leaflet presentation (German text only, but also an English summary and brief but useful essay) are adequate. What matters is that an opera well worth hearing can now be heard.'