Intermezzo

Swiss Welsh Dutchman in London

Der fliegende Holländer - Oper Zürich - Royal Festival Hall, 15 December 2012

As they've done a few times before, Zurich Opera interrupted their home schedule to bring a concert version of a current show to the Royal Festival Hall - orchestra, singers and all.

This time round, it was their new production of Der fliegende Holländer.  Both London houses have tackled it recently. Neither managed, with all the costumes, curtains and furnishing items at their disposal, anything nearly as thrilling as Zurich gave us with a bare stage  - and a few top-class singers.

Fidelio for all in Munich

Fidelio - Nationaltheater Munich, 8 July 2011

 

Balloon-bedecked crash barriers split Max-Joseph-Platz in two on Friday night. On one side, operagoers in satin and stilettos shuffled through a narrow gap in the barriers to reach the Nationaltheater. Settling down on picnic blankets over the rest of the large square were the somewhat less glamorous audience for the free outdoors live screening of the evening's opera.

Royal Opera House autumn season 2011

Friends booking opens tomorrow (public booking 5 July) for the first chunk of the Royal Opera House's 2011-12 season. As soon as the details were announced, people were complaining how boring it looked. That was my initial reaction too, but when it came down to working out what I wanted to see, everything seems to have some compelling attraction or other.

Munich Opera: the 2011-2012 season

The Bavarian State Opera in Munich announced their 2011-12 season at a press conference this morning. A novelty worth imitating - a live chat feature on their website allowed Intendant Klaus Bachler and Music Director Kent Nagano to answer audience questions as well.

The heart of the season is a new Ring cycle directed by Andreas Kriegenburg and conducted by Nagano. This begins in February 2012 and culminates in two full cycles during the annual Festival in July. Excellent casting includes Klaus Florian Vogt as Siegmund, Anja Kampe as Sieglinde, Johan Reuter and Juha Uusitalo as Wotan, Lance Ryan as Siegfried, Wolfgang Koch as Alberich and Nina Stemme as Brünnhilde.

There are just two additional premieres. The first is Les Contes d'Hoffmann conducted by Constantinos Carydis and directed by Richard Jones.  Rolando Villazón takes the title role and Diana Damrau all the female leads. According to the Munich website, this is an ENO co-production. though who knows if and when. And La Fura dels Baus produce a new Turandot with Jennifer Wilson as Turandot and Marco Berti as Calaf.

The rest of the season is not new, but it's strongly cast  - though it has to be admitted some of the productions are showing their age. Jürgen Rose's plain but serviceable Don Carlo is revived under the baton of Asher Fisch, with a starry cast including Jonas Kaufmann, René Pape, Mariusz Kwiecien and Anja Harteros.

Vesselina Kasarova joins Anna Netrebko in I Capuleti e i Montecchi. Konwitschny's dodgy 'spin-class' Der fliegende Holländer reappears with Anja Kampe as Senta and Klaus Florian Vogt as Erik. The annual Gruberova-fest showcases the ageless diva in Christof Loy's Roberto Devereux, with Joseph Calleja in the title role. And to round things off there's La Cenerentola with Joyce DiDonato.

Royal Opera's Flying Dutchman - Bryn fails to save ship from sinking

Der fliegende Holländer - Royal Opera House, 23 February 2009 (opening night)

Oh dearie me. The Royal Opera House don't seem to have much luck with Wagner. And I had such high hopes for this new Der fliegende Holländer production. But I haven't sat through anything quite as tedious at Covent Garden since Iphigénie en Tauride a couple of years back. And a long sit it was too. Two and half hours non-stop is enough to give anyone a barnacled bottom.

It's the director's fault. Isn't it always? 

Tim Albery's focus is Senta's daydreaming.  And what she's escaping from is more important than what she's escaping to. She's not really bothered about the mysterious Dutchman, let alone redemption or any sort of spiritual enlightenment. She just wants to hop on his boat and get outta town. So she symbolically clutches a toy ship in place of the Dutchman's portrait that she sings about, looking predictably deranged.

Her mundane life is displayed in all its drabness. There's only one set, the weathered carcase of a giant ship. The lighting is dim. Welly-clad trawlermen and overalled factory girls stomp around in the gloom. An inch-deep puddle spreads apologetically across the front of the stage like a roof leak. 

There are a couple of arresting visual moments when a bank of sewing machines drop from the sky for the spinning sequence and later when the Dutchman's sailors emerge from the hold tinted ghostly green. But otherwise it's relentlessly grim to watch, and the lack of light rapidly irritates.

A better musical performance might have minimised the damage, but only Anja Kampe's searingly bright and fearless Senta struggled through it with unqualified credit.

Bryn Terfel was not up to his best, uncharacteristically subdued and opaque. To some extent this is demanded in a production which focusses on Senta, but he seemed to have little to offer vocally between a shout and a whisper. I find it hard to believe his voice has declined that much in the year or so since I last heard him, so I hope it's just a short-term health problem. His diction was superb and words immaculately pointed though.

Hans-Peter König's Daland was robustly sung though under-characterised. Torsten Kerl's manic Erik sounded strangulated, and his bleached mullet hurt my eyes nearly as much as the lousy lighting.

But perhaps the best singing came from the well-drilled chorus, who also showed more enthusiasm than anyone else on stage for the dreary production.

Although the Royal Opera House orchestra played very well, Marc Albrecht sanded down and whitewashed every ounce of genuine drama from the music, substituting theatrical mannerism.  Excessively slow passages jarred against sprightly songs in a way which did credit to neither. A neatly-constructed and stirring score became interminably long and unforgiveably tedious. And how could an overture played that fast sound that dull? 

When at the end Senta lay down and expired in the middle of the empty stage (no redemption here), I knew how she felt.

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REVIEWS - a very mixed bag for this one

Rupert Christiansen in the Daily Telegraph - "unmissable"
Edward Seckerson in the Independent - "one of those rare evenings in the opera house that has you sitting so far forward in your seat that every muscle in your body is aching by close of play"
MusicOMH.com - "failed to live up to expectations"
George Hall in The Stage - "some thrilling playing and conductor Marc Albrecht does an impressive job"
Barry Millington in the Evening Standard - "a far cry from the thrilling productions seen in Germany in recent decades"
Musicalcriticism.com - "prevents us from engaging with the characters on a human level"
Richard Fairman in the FT - "The performances of the two central characters .... are so compelling that there is hardly time to focus on anything else"
Neil Fisher in the Times - "the strongest argument in favour of this unsentimental night at the opera comes from the pit"
Andrew Clements in the Guardian - "Tim Albery's staging is built around Bryn Terfel's haunted portrayal of the Dutchman, and the bass-baritone unquestionably delivers"

 

Production photos: Clive Barda
Curtain call photos: intermezzo.typepad.com

a flying Brynterview

 

Last night I went to the Royal Opera House to find out about Tim Albery's new production of Der fliegende Holländer, which opens later this month. The ROH run these 'Insight Evenings' for most productions. There's no fixed format. Live music, talk, background, lectures, recordings - anything or anyone can appear, sometimes even the stars of the show. And that's exactly what we got here. Not just the lovely Anja Kampe (Senta) but the Welsh Dutchman himself, Bryn Terfel. Atoning for past absences maybe? No-one dared to probe that particular issue.

Instead, Bryn answered some more general questions.

He talked about how he prepares for a role, learning by repetition, singing wherever he can, at home or in the car "taking the kids to choir practice". What he sung when he was starting out, like Mozart, was easy to learn. But this is different - once a singer moves on to Wagner, there's no time for a social life. He'll just go straight to the music room when he gets home and open a bottle of red wine.

His first (and to date only) Dutchman was the WNO's 2006 production. But when he looked at the music again three months ago he could remember nothing. It was like looking at a new score. (Too much red wine perhaps?  asked Anja Kampe. We all giggled.)

Studying the discography helps as well. He prefers what he called 'old fashioned' singing, because of the way with words. Diction is very important for Bryn. "The three boys think I'm absolutely crazy" he said (it was so touching how many times he sneaked his kids into the conversation.)

George London's widow gave Bryn some of the great man's marked-up scores, and Bryn was amazed to find he can "cut and paste" London's comments - he had "exactly the same problems" in the same places.

It was clear his feelings about David Pountney's WNO Dutchman were, er, 'mixed'. He prefers traditional productions, so he had to swallow his disappointment when he found out this one was set in outer space. He didn't like the raked stage either. That's partly for health reasons - two of his three back operations followed working on sloping stages.

He's already counted the steps behind the rake in Tim Albery's new set - fifteen, he announced disapprovingly. But he'll get on with it. That's not the only physical trial - he'll also have to tug a rope so heavy it floored a stagehand. (We looked at some design slides later - all wellies and scaffolding - very grim). But he sounded optimistic overall and claimed he's more prepared now than he was first time round. We shall see!