Keelhauling Wagner

The Met’s new production of ‘Der Fliegende Holländer’ (The Flying Dutchman) is a gloomy, static voyage. 

ByHeidi WalesonMarch 4, 2020 3:08 pm ET

Wagner’s “Der Fliegende Holländer” is a ghost story, but the new production that opened on Monday at the Metropolitan Opera is deadly, and not in a good way. It was surprising that director François Girard, who staged a revelatory “Parsifal” at the Met in 2013, would shroud the opera’s supernatural themes in generalized darkness and stasis; the performance of conductor Valery Gergiev, known for slapdash, noisy energy, was easier to predict. 

“Der Fliegende Holländer” (The Flying Dutchman) is the tale of a mysterious sea captain, condemned, for blasphemy, to roam the seas until Judgment Day unless he finds a faithful woman to redeem him. He makes landfall once every seven years to try and find one; so far, it hasn’t worked out. Senta, the dreamy daughter of a Norwegian sea captain, Daland, is obsessed with a portrait of the Dutchman and his legend. Daland brings the Dutchman to his home, ready to marry his daughter to this mysterious stranger who promises him enormous wealth in exchange. Tragedy ensues.

The opera, which had its premiere in 1843, is the earliest of Wagner’s operas to win a place in the standard repertory. There are some “number” arias and ensembles, in the manner of bel canto composers, nestled into the uninterrupted musical flow that would become Wagner’s hallmark. This production treats these different styles as if they were the same, setting the piece in a kind of dream state, so the more grounded characters, like the practical Daland and the passionate Erik, Senta’s rejected boyfriend, seem unmoored. 

John Macfarlane’s set completes the Met’s gold proscenium with a fourth edge across the front of the stage, creating a picture frame for the Dutchman’s portrait—a giant eye. For the roiling storm overture, a dancer Senta (Alison Clancy), in a red dress, undulates in front of the eye, while video projections (by Peter Flaherty) on a scrim suggest wind patterns. There are also dancing white lights—is this a galaxy far, far away? Hard to say. Once the opera gets started, all the activity is downstage, leaving a dark, empty space behind. Daland’s ship is a physical object; the Dutchman’s is a vague collection of lights and shadows projected on the rear wall; in the Dutchman’s first entrance, he walks over the empty space (is it water?) and perches on a downstage rock for his opening monologue. 

The principal singers mostly stand still, leaving movement to the chorus, whose ritualistic choreography (by Carolyn Choa) suggests that they are automatons. For the spinning chorus of Act II, ropes drop from above, and the women shake them and twist them together as though they were marching around several giant maypoles. In Act III, as the sailors and the girls call to the ghost ship, they are not jaunty and playful, but rather bewitched by the glowing rocks (the Dutchman’s treasure) that they are carrying. Other than Senta’s red dress, Moritz Junge’s drab costumes are all in neutral hues; David Finn’s murky lighting adds to the gloom. The vagueness of the production also creates confusion: Since the Dutchman overhears the entire Act III Erik-Senta scene, rather than just its end, it makes no sense that he thinks Senta has been unfaithful to him. 

This production was supposed to be Bryn Terfel’s return to the house after an eight-year absence, but he broke his ankle at the end of January and had to cancel. He was missed. His replacement as the Dutchman, Evgeny Nikitin, was monochromatic and stentorian, and his steely bass-baritone expressed none of the Dutchman’s anguish or mystery. Soprano Anja Kampe, making her house debut as Senta, was more satisfying, deploying a lush, resonant timbre, vocal flexibility, and an alluring low register. Tenor Sergey Skorokhodov also made a positive impression as Erik, shaking off the prevailing narcoleptic tone to inject some passion into the proceedings. Franz-Josef Selig was an agreeably hearty Daland, avoiding the greediness that can be the hallmark of this character; David Portillo was a sweet-voiced Steersman, and Mihoko Fujimura played Mary, who disapproves of Senta’s obsession, with aplomb. 

In the pit, Mr. Gergiev whipped up his forces without bothering to control them, alternately creating an atmosphere of continual storminess, or, as in the lengthy first encounter between the Dutchman and Senta, a snooze. Together with Mr. Girard, he made this opera, with its problematic story and patchwork style, less convincing rather than more. 

—Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).