By BERNARD HOLLAND [NY Times, 27 November 2005]

GERMAN civilization has had a lot to answer for in the last 200 years, but Exhibit A in its defense might be Carl Maria von Weber. No one else's music could be purer of heart and yet so unmistakably German. People confuse moral behavior and art at their peril, but Weber's last opera, "Oberon," like so much of his music, tempts us to do just that. It emits an uncomplicated humanity: an implied goodness that in our more cynical time is received with undeserved wariness.