The life of the founder of German Romantic opera, Carl Maria von Weber, was to a considerable extent linked with the Bohemian lands. From 1813 – 1816 he was the principal conductor of the Estates Theatre in Prague, fell in love there with singer/actress Caroline Brandt and married her in the Prague Church of St Henry in 1817; and paid several curative visits to the spa resort of Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad). It was also in Bohemia that he set the plot of his most famous opera, Der Freischütz. His last opera, Die drei Pintos, to the libretto of Theodor Hell, remained unfinished. At the behest of the composer’s grandson, Carl, the task of completing the work was in 1887 undertaken by Gustav Mahler. He complemented the score by music from Weber’s other works, and added passages of his own making, inspired by Weber’s themes. Mahler conducted the opera’s world premiere in Leipzig, on January 20, 1888, and eight months later, on August 18 of the same year, presented it at the New German Theatre (today’s Prague State Opera). The plot is based on the popular ploy of fake identity, which is in this particular case three-fold: Don Pinto, a wealthy, rude landowner, finds himself cheated by two young men, Don Gaston and Gomez, pretending, each in his own turn, to be him. They foil Pinto’s pretensions to fair Donna Clarissa who in her turn loves Gomez. Needless to say, the opera then moves on towards a happy ending.
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