Karl Böhm's Freischütz (1972) that has the natural ease of born kinship. His playing of the overture sets the tone with sounds that breathe the sunlit forests; the Wolf's Glen scene tilts these into the lurking horror that is the dark side of the opera's coin.
The cast also inhabit their parts as if born into them. Gundula Janowitz floats her tone with ravishing effect in Agathe's 'Leise, leise' and in the later prayer, 'Und ob die Wolke'. Renate Holm sparkles alongside her, deliciously sending up the song about the 'ghostly' dog. Karl Ridderbusch is the blackest of Caspars, sinister yet not without a hint of pathos in this selfdestroying soul. By the same token James King, much of whose career lay in German-speaking lands, has the heroic ring for Max but also the anxiety that has weakened his character. He earns the sonorous forgiveness of Franz Crass's Hermit. The smaller parts fit no less easily into this village community, Manfred Jungwirth making more than usual of Cuno.
There is a merry set of Bridesmaids, and Huntsmen who rejoice infectiously in the chase, though the Act 3 prelude anticipating their chorus is cut (so, reasonably, is a good deal of the dialogue). In the Wolf's Glen itself, there is too much in the way of shrieking winds and clattering hooves, when the music really does it all; but then this was a stage performance, and the scene meets with somewhat stunned applause. It never fails as a spine-chiller. Böhm handles everything beautifully, and unobtrusively, as if the work can be left to speak for itself, which of course is the art of real experience in the opera house. It is a most attractive performance. (The booklet excludes a text and translation.)

Böhm handles everything beautifully, and unobtrusively, as if the work can be left to speak for itself, which of course is the art of real experience in the opera house.