The Flying Dutchman at Bayreuth

For some bizarre reason, I can't get the words of Cecil Frances Alexander's Passiontide hymn out of my head. After leaving the main station at Bayreuth and turning right, the words of her hymn There is a Green Hill suddenly flood my mind.

I have joined that throng making their annual pilgrimage up to Green Hill, where Richard Wagner built the opera house that has now become the focus for the yearly adulation of the composer and his defining works. I feel excited; this is my first time in this small town that claims to have the best opera house.

Of course, if you had turned left outside the station, you would have encountered the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Margravial Opera House, which initially drew Wagner to Bayreuth and has played a significant role in Germany's rich operatic history since its construction in the 1790s.

I will be writing about that and Bayreuth over the next few weeks, but for now I return to Mrs Alexander’s hymn because, if you will forgive my paraphrasing, I am following the dearly dearly lovers of Wagner. They are all preparing for the first and shortest of the three operas on my schedule, which is The Flying Dutchman, and no interval.

This opera tells the legendary story of Der Holländer, a seafaring mariner cursed with a fate of wandering the seas until his true love rescues him. The plot is based largely on Heinrich Heine's 1834 tale From the Memoirs of Herr von Schnabelewopski.

If I thought it was going to be a seascape, I was wrong. Dimitri Tcherniakov's interpretation, characterized by a minimalistic and bleak set, transports the audience to a small village with houses, a church, and a Kneipe (German for bar), the opera's focal point. There’s plenty of beer being drunk, but we are in Upper Franconia with its numerous breweries.

However, let's return to the storyline: the technical team skilfully choreographed the set to depict various town areas in this remarkable production. Instead of the usual and predictable seascape, we have a boy, the young Dutchman, witnessing the suicide of his prostitute mother, whose rejection by the town community precipitates his later act of revenge.

Years later he meets Daland, a sailor who offers his recalcitrant daughter, Senta, in marriage. Act 3 sees everything go awry, with the Dutchman causing trouble and upsetting the townspeople. After the Stuermann, lass die Wacht and the ‘Phantom’ song, Der Holländer shoots into the gathered crowd, killing a couple of Senta’s acquaintances. As the situation escalates, the town erupts into flames, prompting Mary, Senta's mother, to use a shotgun to murder the Dutchman. Senta takes the shotgun from Mary, and for the first time we see compassion between the two.

The Norwegian Soprano Elisabeth Teige, as Senta, is outstanding. Her acting, let alone her voice, is superb. A delightful moment occurs when she secretly expresses her annoyance towards Daland by hurling herself against the wall. Better to see than describe. Her stage presence is phenomenal, and what a voice—so sublime, so expressive, so powerful, so mesmeric, and spellbinding—a joy to hear. Completely absorbing stage presence.

Georg Zeppenfeld sung Daland with the passion and intensity of his rich bass voice. Michael Volle Der Holländer, executes his role with confidence and superbly brings out the darkness of the role. All the soloists, whether on their own, in duet or ensemble, had such magnificent musicality and synchronicity.

Erik (Eric Cutler), Mary (Nadine Weissmann), and Matthew Newlin all sung their roles with the first-rate quality one would expect from a Bayreuth production. The large chorus also contributed with a wonderful blended and resonant sound.

But just before the opera began, the hot balmy weather outside the opera house was whipped up into a storm with the winds swirling the audience into their seats and, as that wonderful motif that appears throughout began, the vivid wild evocation of the storm at sea seemed so real. The brass magnificent, the strings superb, the percussion graphically adding to the thunder, the woodwind striking—the drama was beginning.

Oksana Lyniv, the first female conductor to appear at Bayreuth, made sure the electricity was always present. The orchestra featured musicians from international top orchestras. Lyniv's pace was perfect; her baton drew out all the minutiae with meticulous detail. The sound in the Bayreuther Festpsielhaus was remarkable. The full weight of the orchestra never intruded, but the crescendos were thrilling.

The building is made of wood, and the 12-metre-deep orchestra pit brings the sound of the hidden orchestra into the auditorium in an indirect way. The unique architecture enhances the clarity of the singers' voice. The orchestra sits beneath the stage, allowing the singer to make direct contact with the audience. The orchestra's sound travels from the orchestra pit's arched wall to the stage's rear wall, thereby projecting the singers' voices into the audience.

As the audience stamped their feet and stood in admiration for numerous curtain calls, with the loudest cheers reserved for Elisabeth Teige, the storm outside subsided and the town on stage was razed to the ground as Der Holländer lay dead.

Oh dearly dearly have we loved - despite this unusual staging, especially for a German and Bayreuth audience, at the end of the production, Lyniv, Tcherniakov, Teige, Volle, Zteppenfeld, et al., brought the production to a resounding triumphal acclaim. 

More information on the Festival here