Der fliegende Holländer, Bayreuth Festival, July 2012

The 2012 Wagner festival at Bayreuth started in dramatic fashion when the singer in the title role for a new production of The Flying Dutchman suddenly pulled out. Evgeny Nikitin, covered in body-tattoos from his former career as a heavy-metal singer, found himself the focus of attention, and although claims of a swastika seem unfounded, his presence became a hot issue and he withdrew. The festival administration, once run by Hitler admirer Winifred Wagner, took no chances on that score, but all turned out well, and Samuel Youn, who replaced Nikitin, fell to his knees at the end, gratefully accepting thunderous applause for a powerfully sung performance. Adrianne Pieczonka sang a glorious Senta, and her father Daland was warmly portrayed by Franz-Josef Selig as a suave, lightly-bearded character in a double-breasted suit. Benjamin Bruns delivered a beautifully sung helmsman, and Michael König a passionate Erik.

Daland and Dutchman, all images Bayreuther Festspiele/ Enrico Nawrath

The singers, including the fine chorus, were superbly supported by Christian Thielemann, hidden away in the covered orchestra pit of this extraordinary opera house. As one of today’s greatest Wagner interpreters, he gave the music huge excitement, starting with the overture, which brought out and contrasted the elemental power of wind and sea with the plaintive call of the woodwind.

Senta and her toys

The Dutchman roams the seas, halting every seven years to seek redemption through true love, yet this production contains no ships, save a small dinghy at the beginning seating the sea captain Daland and his helmsman. When the Dutchman arrives with his tiny suitcase and strange skin condition, a girl in sexy lingerie tries her luck, but he rejects her. Daland then offers his daughter Senta, whose conventional world is represented as a factory packing electric fans into cardboard boxes. Her yearning to get away is hardly surprising, and her red dress is the only real dash of colour in this dull environment, apart from her cardboard toys splashed with red paint.

Senta’s simple environment contrasts with the hugely elaborate set at the start, showing an alien, electronic world from which the Dutchman emerges, yet the studied uniformity in both worlds emphasises Senta as the one who is different. Subtlety and irony are absent, and for his first production at Bayreuth, 30-year old theatre director Jan Philipp Gloger may have underestimated the power and clarity of Wagner’s music to such a sophisticated audience. After the stamping and cheering for singers and conductor, his production team was greeted with a barrage of boos.

Senta and her Dutchman

In a question and answer session the following day, the director apparently gave clear and reasonable explanations of his interpretation. For example when the Dutchman first arrives he rolls up his sleeve and appears to stab himself in the arm. To the audience this looks rather as if he were giving himself an injection, but in fact it demonstrates that he does bleed when wounded. Later in the opera when he has fallen for Senta his arm bleeds, showing he has become flesh and blood. Such explanations are obviously helpful, but the production should not need them.

Apparently Herr Gloger could relate details of his production to the music itself, which may help explain why the conductor, Christian Thielemann — a great Wagnerian — endorsed him so clearly during the curtain calls, despite the adverse audience reaction.

Performances of Dutchman continue until August 24 — for details click here.

The Flying Dutchman, English National Opera, ENO, London Coliseum, April 2012

Sudden darkness in the auditorium … the orchestra struck up, and we were treated to great power and sensitivity from the baton of Edward Gardner. The silences were silent, the quiet passages quiet, and the loud passages with the chorus came over with huge force.

All images by Robert Workman

This new production by Jonathan Kent starts in the overture with a little girl being put to bed by her father Daland the sea captain. She dreams of the sea … the wild, windy sea, shown in video projections designed by Nina Dunn. Then as the opera gets underway we see huge designs by Paul Brown filling the stage from top to bottom, with lighting by Mark Henderson embracing the video effects and giving beautiful colour changes during Daland’s lyrical dialogue with his daughter, when salvation beckons.

Clive Bayley as Daland

In the end when the Dutchman chides his would-be saviour, Senta for her apparent unfaithfulness he silently vanishes from the party throng, she smashes a bottle . . . and it’s all over. She dies and he is redeemed.

Entrance of the Dutchman

James Creswell as the Dutchman exhibited superb restraint and nobility, both in voice and stage presence, and with Clive Bayley portraying Daland as an engagingly earnest father to Senta, this was a cast rich in wonderful bass tones. At the higher register, Stuart Skelton was a brilliant Erik, the young man in love with Senta. He is a star in the ENO firmament. As Senta herself, Orla Boylan gave a somewhat uneven vocal performance with some strong moments but a flaccid stage-presence.

Senta at the party

The Dutchman has been wandering the planet for countless years, and in Jonathan Kent’s production we see him dressed in a costume from two hundred years ago, contrasting with the girls working in a modern assembly shop where a costume party turns wild, threatening a gang rape of Senta . . . but suddenly the Dutchman’s ghostly crew sing powerfully from off-stage, scaring the living daylights out of the revellers. This is the same director who has produced Sweeney Todd now playing in the West End, so perhaps a bit of the Sweeney darkness has invaded Wagner, but that’s no bad thing, and the chorus carried it off superbly. They were wonderful.

The Flying Dutchman is the first of Wagner’s operas in the regular canon of ten, and this was the first time Edward Gardner has conducted any of them. I look forward to more!

Performances continue until May 23 — for details click here.

Der fliegende Holländer, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Wagner Wochen, February 2010

The stars of this performance were Manuela Uhl as Senta, and Hans-Peter König as her father Daland. Both sang very strongly, and along with Endrik Wottrich as Erik, they portrayed their roles with great sensitivity. Egils Silins as the Dutchman was not in the same league as Uhl and König. He would have made a good Hunding in Walküre, but did not have the voice to dominate in this particular cast. His stage presence was also weak, and when facing Senta alone on stage he held a rather pathetic stance. A good director should be able to overcome this, but I’m afraid Tatjana Gürbaca was not up to the job. She was probably more concerned with her own strange concept, in which the men were shown as financial traders, and the women as performers and party girls. In the end the Dutchman gave Senta a knife to kill Erik, which she did, and Senta’s nurse Marie killed Senta the same way. I haven’t the faintest idea what story Ms. Gürbaca was trying to stage and, judging by the enormous amount of booing at the end, nor did most of the audience. The words, however, were by Wagner and so was the music, beautifully played under the direction of Jacques Lacombe.

In the previous two operas this week, Lohengrin and Rienzi, the lighting was wonderful but there was no mention of the lighting designer. In this opera, however, Wolfgang Göbbel took credit and it was appalling — far too bright much of the time, and when lights were shone directly into the auditorium it suggested that the director wanted to insult the audience as well as Wagner. Indeed the director was the problem, rather than Herr Göbbel, who designed wonderful lighting for Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt at Covent Garden a year ago. But if you closed your eyes, as I did most of the time, the great music still came through with fine effect.

This is apparently Ms. Gürbaca’s first Wagner opera, and I hope it may be her last.

Wagner Week at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, February 2010

On February 9^th I shall be in Berlin for a week of Wagner operas at the Deutsche Oper. Here is the list, with details of the performers.

Lohengrin: production by Götz Friedrich, conducted by Michael Schønwandt, with Ben Heppner as Lohengrin, Ricarda Merbeth as Elsa, Waltraud Meier as Ortrud, and Eike Wilm Schulte as her husband Telramund. I recall that Shulte sang a very strong Kurwenal in the Metropolitan live relay of Tristan in March 2008.

Rienzi: production by film director Philipp Stölzl, conducted by Sebastian Lang-Lessing, with Torsten Kerl as Rienzi, who sang Tristan at Glyndebourne in summer 2009. Camilla Nylund will be his sister Irene, Kate Aldrich her lover Adriano, and Ante Jerkunica as Adriano’s father.

Der fliegende Holländer: production by Tatjana Gürbaca, conducted by Jacques Lacombe, with Egil Silins as the Dutchman, Hans-Peter König as Daland, Manuela Uhl as his daughter Senta, and Endrik Wottrich as Erik. Ms Uhl had the misfortune to portray the eponymous role in the dreadful production of Salome by the Deutsche Oper last year, but let’s hope she has the advantage of a sensible production for this opera. Mentioning last year in Berlin, I recall Jacques Lacombe conducting an excellent Ariadne auf Naxos for the Deutsche Oper, and last summer a very fine Tosca for the Royal Opera in London.

Tannhäuser: production by Kirsten Harms, conducted by Ulf Schirmer, with Stephen Gould as Tannhäuser, Nadja Michael as Venus/Elisabeth, and Dietrich Henschel as Wolfram. Both Stephen Gould and Nadja Michael were together at the Royal Opera last January in Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt, an opera, like Tannhäuser, where a young man is pulled into a vortex of desire by a woman portraying two roles.

Die Meistersinger: production by Götz Friedrich, conducted by Donald Runnicles, with James Johnson as Hans Sachs, Klaus Florian Vogt as Walther, and Michaela Kaune as Eva. She was the Marschallin in the Deutsche Oper’s Rosenkavalier last year, and I saw both Vogt and Kaune in the Bayreuth Meistersinger this past summer, where he sang brilliantly despite the diabolical production. Beckmesser will be Marcus Brück, with Ulrike Helzel as Magdalena, and Paul Kaufmann as David.