WEBER - Der Freischutz
The supernatural had been a part of opera ever since its invention in the early 17th century, where a deus ex machina saved many an ending, and by Mozart's time Zauberopern ('magic operas') were all the rage.
The burgeoning Romantic interest in the Gothic, the grotesque and supernatural evident in the literature, art, and music of the beginning of the 19th century, combined with the desire (championed especially by Carl Maria von Weber in his work as opera director at Prague and Dresden) to identify a specifically German art form, made opera's combination of story, staging, and sound an ideal medium to explore these themes in the performing arts.
'There are in Der Freischütz two principal elements,' Weber wrote, 'hunting life and the rule of demonic powers as personified by Samiel [the devil to whom Caspar has sold his soul].' They appear in immediate conflict in the overture, which was written last. 'The horns provided the tone-colour of the scoring for the forest and hunting life,' explained the composer.

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