The premiere was followed by a reception offered by Frölicher. Goebbels had been invited but to Schoeck's relief did not turn up. Elsbeth had come all the way from Hamburg for the event, and Hilde's sister was also there. Ernst Isler telegraphed his first, brief impressions home, which appeared in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on 2 April: “In libretto and composition the work is a markedly great opera.” The German reviews were hardly less enthusiastic. On 3 April Karl Holl wrote in the Frankfurter Zeitung:

Fritz Stege in the Hamburger Tageblatt of 2 April praised the work's instrumentation and the orchestral use of the piano, while Walter Abendroth in the Berliner Lokalanzeiger of 2 April wrote of Burte's “remarkable taste” in adapting Eichendorff. In the Dresdner Zeitung of 2 April Karl Laux gushed: “In the land of Eichendorff and Burte, Schoeck has found a home.” Only a few—such as Hermann Heger in the Neue Leipziger Tageszeitung of 3 April—dared to make any negative comments about Burte's incessant rhyming couplets.