Weber's opera Oberon, written for Covent Garden 200 years ago shortly before his death in 1826, is finally being appreciated for its musical brilliance despite a notoriously nonsensical libretto. Conductor Sir Mark Elder, preparing to lead its Proms premiere, argues that Weber was a brilliant composer let down by poor choices of librettist across all three of his major operas, and that a reworked narration can now let the music shine as it deserves.

Weber died of tuberculosis aged 39, just after Oberon's premiere, and was later reburied in Dresden thanks to funds raised by an admiring Wagner. His operas Der Freischütz and Euryanthe suffer similarly from weak texts despite inventive, colourful scores. Oberon's original story, by James Robinson Planché, is a sprawling fantasy of fairies, pirates and crusaders that no longer plays well to modern audiences, so for the Proms performance writer Timothy Knapman has created a new narration, spoken by Tamsin Greig, while the music itself remains untouched.