Weber's Oberon Premieres at Proms Despite 'Ludicrous' Plot
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- Oberon receives its Proms premiere, with the conductor of that performance celebrating the opera's brilliance and calling for its music to be heard on its own terms
- Carl Maria von Weber is characterized as a great opera composer working at the height of his powers when he wrote Oberon, producing a score "full of panache and originality"
- The opera's libretto is dismissed as a "load of nonsense" and "ludicrous," with the article arguing the music's magnificence has been obscured by plot weakness
- Weber is described as having "a minimal ability to find the right librettist," a flaw the article suggests undermined even his grandest works
- The article's central argument is that Oberon's musical qualities deserve to be appreciated independently of its dramatically incoherent story
Why it matters: For opera audiences and the Proms' broad listenership, the premiere offers rare exposure to a Weber score whose reputation has suffered from a weak libretto — and the conductor's advocacy frames this Proms staging as a rehabilitation of a work historically dismissed along with its plot.
