Composer: Richard Wagner
Director: Julia Burbach
Conductor: Peter Selwyn
Opera Holland Park’s The Flying Dutchman, its first ever Wagner production, is a musical joy. There are terrific solo performances, particularly by Eleanor Dennis as Senta and Paul Carey Jones as the Dutchman, with strong support from the Opera Holland Park Chorus. The City of London Sinfonia are in vibrant form, as ever, under the baton of Peter Selwyn.
The Flying Dutchman is a good entry point for audiences who might feel intimidated by Wagner. For a start, it’s short (this production is 2 hours 40 minutes, including a long interval). And then the story itself, with the myth of the Dutchman condemned by the devil to sail the seas forever, is darkly powerful. Wagner’s score is compelling from the first moments of the overture, with its gripping evocation of a storm at sea and the driving forces to which the Dutchman is subject. Wagner wrote his own libretto, giving a seriousness to Heinrich Heine’s satirical retelling of the legend, putting redemption at the heart of the opera. Once in every seven years, the Dutchman is allowed to make land. If he can win the love of a woman who remains faithful unto death, he will be released from his curse.
In the tightly woven plot, it is Senta, daughter of the Norwegian sea captain Daland, who has already fallen in love with the mysterious figure of the Dutchman, moved by compassion for his suffering. Although she has yet to meet him, she is enchanted by a picture of him. The fateful meeting of the two, late in the work, is a wonderful scene. Neither speaks nor sings. It is Daland who provides the music as the pair stare at one another in dazed silence, each encountering the archetypal lover of whom they have long dreamed.
Dreams are significant images in the work, and it is for perhaps this reason that throughout the overture, not only do we see a nightgown-clad Senta aloft in her bedroom, but the whole female chorus, appears, in identical clothes and wigs, drifting onto the set. But the reason for this multiplying of Senta isn’t wholly apparent. And so it is that from the start there is a sense of crowding and busyness in this production that at times distracts rather than illuminates.
The Flying Dutchman is a work that is already well-stuffed with narrative and musical motifs, so director Julia Burbach’s decision to fill every moment with movement may not please everyone. There is fine singing from the male chorus as sailors, but there is rather a lot of their going about their nautical business and later executing drunken dances. The women, now dressed as spinners, sing their familiar chorus ‘Summ und brumm, du gutes Rädchen’, but the movements for this, on a cramped stage, don’t successfully suggest spinning.
It’s the staging which is the main problem. There is much to be said in favour of the tightened acting area at Opera Holland Park – the difficult thrust reduced in size and successfully lowered so that most of the action can take place close to the audience. But Naomi Dawson’s strange construction – at first seeming to be a ship’s bridge, tilted at an alarming angle in the storm, but which later seems to be the interior of Daland’s house – is awkward and aesthetically unappealing. So too the various broken tables and chairs on the shore, sunk into the shingle, create a scene that is far from ship-shape. More significantly, it all leaves very little acting space. The upstage area has disappeared behind large sails, so the principals are forced to perform on the sloping bridge, or scurry around beneath it where the lighting sometimes fails to reach them.
The Dutchman’s ghostly ship is hard to suggest, and in this production, its presence is not strongly felt. The ghostly sailors, however, work well – shrouded men who walk slowly and silently through the audience, bringing a sense of chill. Atmospherically, the production works well, assisted tonight by the spectacular rainstorm outside.
See this production for the wonderful music and some excellent singing. It’s one that may well win over non-Wagnerians.
Runs until 14 June 2025.
