Since its premiere on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin, Carl Maria von Weber's FREISCHÜTZ has fascinated viewers and artists alike. As the first German national opera, always received as a naive ghost story in a presumably idyllic world of hunters and farmers, the nocturnal sides of life audibly push forth in the central Wolf's Glen scene. "This is not the Bohemian Forest where my cradle stood, but rather an onset of dread, magic from the early days of the disenchanted world," wrote Theodor W. Adorno in 1962.

Max cannot go on: worn down by the pressure to succeed and expected behaviours, he escapes into the Wolf's Glen. There, that night in the forbidden forest, the incredible and unexpected happens – a pact with the Devil himself. Seven bullets seem to be Max's only way out, and only pull him deeper to perdition. In the Wolf's Glen scene Weber mixes melodrama, natural description and a grand opera finale. As a genuine piece of theatre music this score screams for scenic radicalism.

Beginning with Friedrich Kind's FREISCHÜTZ libretto and Weber's music, composer Malte Giesen and director Paul-Georg Dittrich address the dark sides of our desires. Seven bullets are promised to Max, and the musical theatre evening at the Tischlerei has seven stations. With three singers, children's choir, two horns, piano and electronic music, the aggregate states of rage, grief, fear and hope are made tangible.