Der Fliegende Holländer, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, October 2011

Jeffrey Tate in the orchestra pit gave Wagner’s Flying Dutchman a wonderful clarity, helped of course by the singers, particularly Anja Kampe as a beautifully pure voiced Senta. This was the role in which she made her Covent Garden debut when the production was new in 2009.

The singers for the other main roles are different this time round, but none the worse for that, and the whole cast made a very fine team. Danish bass Stephen Milling came on very strongly at the beginning as a warm-hearted Daland, and Latvian bass-baritone Egils Silins sang the Dutchman with a noble bearing that was extremely effective towards the end when his voice carried enormous power. This was far better than my recollection of his performance in the same role at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin in the most frightful production I’ve ever seen. John Tessier gave us a feisty and strongly sung Steersman, and Endrik Wottrich was a forceful and anxious Erik.

Daland's crew in merry mood, all images Mike Hoban

The huge chorus was in top form, and musically this was excellent, helped enormously by Tim Albery’s production, which fully deserves a revival three seasons after its first appearance. The openness of the stage allows David Finn’s lighting to play a superb part. Singers are occasionally lit in ways that show only their head and shoulders, yet this can change to reveal the whole body, and the use of colours is very clever. Daland is warmly lit, the Dutchman is coldly lit, and when the Dutchman’s crew appear from nowhere they are in an eerie greenish light. This occurs in an enclave of the stage that previously opened up for Daland’s crew — who have been fooling around and even falling into the water — when suddenly … they scatter as the otherworldly crew take their place. After these ghostly sailors have finished their chorus the opening in the stage slowly closes and we see them no more. It’s very effective.

The phantom crew suddenly replaces Daland's men

The lighting brings out the phantom nature of the Dutchman who perpetually sails the seas, landing only once every seven years to seek salvation in a woman’s undying love. When it appears he may have found redemption this time, he too is cast in a reddish glow, but it is not to be.  As the gangplank to his ship rises, Senta clings on, but in the end she is defeated and takes her place centre stage with her magnificent three-mast model ship, and the lighting does the rest.

It’s a super production with an excellent cast — don’t miss it. Performances continue until November 4 — for details click here — and BBC Radio 3 will broadcast it on November 12 at 6 p.m.

Tristan und Isolde, Glyndebourne, August 2009

This was Glyndebourne’s 2003 production by Nikolaus Lehnhoff, revived in 2007, 2008, and again this year under revival director Daniel Dooner. It works terrifically well, with a set by Roland Aeschlimann featuring a broken vortex of huge curved girders. While the vortex alters only slightly from act to act, the main variation comes from the wonderful lighting by Robin Carter. There was no comparison with the cold and incoherent production I saw in Bayreuth three weeks ago, and musically it was better too, with Glyndebourne’s music director Vladimir Jurowski conducting the London Philharmonic with restraint and sensitivity. Unlike Bayreuth, this Glyndebourne production gives a focus to the opera by having essentially the same set throughout, so things can gradually build in intensity until the Liebestod, after which the audience remained silent for a few moments while a square opening surrounding Isolde slowly closed itself off.

The singers all did a fine job, with Ian Storey standing in at the last minute for Torsten Kerl as Tristan. Anja Kampe, whom I saw in February giving a fine performance of Senta in the Royal Opera’s production of Holländer, sang Isolde, but I felt she didn’t quite rise above the orchestra at the end. Her companion Brangäne was sympathetically portrayed by Sarah Connelly, and Tristan’s companion Kurwenal was sung by Polish baritone Andrzej Dobber, who came over very strongly in the last Act. Melot was Trevor Scheunemann, and German bass Georg Zeppenfeld sang a powerful and nuanced King Mark. His understanding and forgiveness of Tristan in the last act was beautifully done, and Ian Storey responded well as Tristan. This was fine acting with both body and voice, and Zeppenfeld gave a fitting lead-in to the final love-death of Isolde.

Three down and one to go. In 2008 the Metropolitan Opera’s cinema screening was excellent, this year Bayreuth was a great disappointment, but now Glyndebourne has made up for it. Let’s hope the new Royal Opera production compares to the two good ones, not the bad one. Oddly enough all four directors are German: Daniel Dorn for the Met, Christof Marthaler for Bayreuth, Nikolaus Lehnhoff for Glyndebourne, and Christof Loy for the Royal Opera. I am full of anticipation, but not optimistic, since Loy’s last two operas for Covent Garden have been disappointing. He inserted a middle-aged lesbian composer into Ariadne auf Naxos, making a nonsense of the interaction with Zerbinetta, which is a focal point of the opera, and he turned Lulu into an incredibly cold affair with stationary singers who might as well have been giving a concert performance. Will Tristan also be cold, like Marthaler’s awful Bayreuth production? I shall report again after the first night on September 29^th.