Wagner - Parsifal (Bayreuth, 2016)

Richard Wagner - Parsifal

Bayreuth, 2016

Hartmut Haenchen, Uwe Eric Laufenberg, Klaus Florian Vogt, Ryan McKinny, Karl-Heinz Lehner, Georg Zeppenfeld, Gerd Grochowski, Elena Pankratova, Tansel Akzeybek, Timo Riihonen, Alexandra Steiner, Mareike Morr, Charles Kim, Stefan Heibach

BR-Klassik - 25 July 2016

The scene where Amfortas sheds his blood in transubstantiation and reveals the mystery of the Grail is an extraordinary moment and usually the key scene in the first Act of Parsifal. It largely determines the nature of the production as a whole, the moment where, famously in the words of Gurnemanz, time becomes space, where the act of pain and suffering of Christ on the cross is shown, his blood given in communion to his followers as a symbol of the mystery of faith. For the knights of the Grail, it's spiritual nourishment of their belief that Christ's death and suffering will lead to human redemption. It's where Parsifal's eyes are open to the truth of this message of the Redeemer, even if he (and we the audience) don't fully understand it, wrapped up as Wagner makes it in Buddhism, religious mysticism and the philosophical writings of Schopenhauer.

It's no small order to get that across on stage, but its important for any successful production of Parsifal and Bayreuth's new production does that with all the necessary stage-consecrating pomp and ceremony, with all its associated imagery of religious transfiguration, but most importantly, with a sense of the real pain of suffering that approaches true agony. Here in Uwe Eric Laufenberg's production, Amfortas, stripped down to a loin-cloth and a crown of thorns like Christ about to be nailed to the cross, reveals the scars of the blood-letting that has sustained his followers, the Knights of Monsalvat, as he is painfully reveals his open wound and bleeds for them once again. The blood simultaneously pours out from other cuts and openings and pools at his feet, rolling down onto the round altar to a tap where the knights partake of it, and Titurel is able to look again upon the Holy Grail.

Along with Wagner's extraordinary score, it's a powerful and unforgettable moment where the Good Friday meaning and implications of it are made explicit, one where you can feel the audience - in reverence at Bayreuth - collectively hold their breath and almost wince at how real the pain is made to feel. It's the high point of the Act, but it's also an indication of how the rest of the opera is to be played out, setting the tone for the more globally important moment (in perhaps the whole of opera) when we and Parsifal return to the same scene in Act III. Unusually for Bayreuth, the first Act is played out with close attention to the directions in the libretto, showing very little of the interpretation, modernising and deconstruction of the composer's work that has been the hallmark of the festival in recent years, and certainly a feature of the last Parsifal produced there directed by Stefan Herheim.

Here, Monsalvat is a semi-ruined temple in the Middle-East. We know this because, in practically the only other moment of visual and dramatic licence in the first Act, we zoom out at this significant moment through time into space in a projected scene that locates Monsalvat's place in the wider universe. Elsewhere, the acolytes are dressed in monk's cassocks, with knights dressed in army combats, none of them seeming to have any other purpose than to look on at the suffering of Amfortas, prepare his bath and move a huge crucifix around, taking off a plaster figure of a naked Christ down from it. Kundry's role is not only mocked by the young squires, but it's somewhat downplayed in Laufenberg's production, the mysterious figure remaining in the background for most of the first Act. In the only real suggestion of a contemporary agenda, there is a reference made to refugees of different faiths taking shelter there. If that feels like a little tacked on, it does however provide a rather more powerful message at the end of the opera.

Act II doesn't stray too far either from the familiar template, but again there are a few contemporary Middle Eastern references that feel shoehorned in. The most bewildering is Klingsor being a keen collector of crucifixes who likes to indulge in a bit of self-flagellation in front of them. Some of the crucifixes he puts to fairly profane uses in the absence of any "equipment" of his own. He also has a bound and gagged Amfortas held captive, his presence meaning that he doesn't so much taunt Kundry over her past as encourage her to act it out again, at least until she can turn her attentions to Parsifal. Elsewhere it's fairly straightforward. We're in the same temple structure, but one that is somewhere between an Arabian temple and a harem. The flower maidens share the same duality, dressed in hajibs when first appearing, before stripping down to colourful Arabian Nights costumes and veils.

None of these touches, much less the presence of Amfortas on the stage, make the action any more real, and again there is a failure to address the nature of Kundry (and women) in this work where they are either playthings or pawns in the power games of men. It's an inconsistent, literal and very old-fashioned reading of the role and of the place of women in Parsifal. Again, this is partly made up for by Act III in this production, but it's achieved more through Wagner's score and the musical performance than anything that the director is able to bring out of it. It doesn't help that Laufenberg's direction is also lacking as far as acting performances are concerned, not that the nature of this unusual music-drama makes this an easy obstacle to overcome. Everyone however seems to be enacting Parsifal or ritualising it with great reverence (Wagner himself even making a death mask appearance in the of the projections) rather than living the work or making its concerns real.

If there is one element however that makes up for the lack of dramatic stage direction in this new Bayreuth production, it's the quality of the singing and the musical direction. I've seen nothing but the highest praise for Hartmut Haenchen's conducting of the work, and undoubtedly you had to be there in the Festspielhaus to really get the impact, but it sounded a little sober and subdued to me in the broadcast version, at least in the first Act, not really carrying the huge emotional sweep of the work. There is some good dramatic underscoring of moments in Act II however and Act III is every bit as extraordinarily beautiful and transformative and it ought to be. While I personally have some questions about the conducting, the singing is beyond reproach. Klaus Florian Vogt gives us his light, lyrical and deeply sensitive Parsifal; Elena Pankratova is one of the most secure and powerful Kundrys I have heard recently, with great dramatic delivery; and Georg Zeppenfeld is consistently brilliant, his bright timbre and perfect enunciation making Gurnemanz's pronouncements nothing less than a sheer joy that compels you to listen.

It's Vogt however who ensures that Act III is nothing less than the magnificent conclusion it ought to be. The soft-voiced tenor makes it a time for quiet reflection, but with a steely sense of purpose and unwavering belief in his deliverance of purification, redemption and a return to the paradise/innocence. It's a stunningly good performance. Keeping the Monsalvat temple as a constant, it is now in ruins, with huge vines and reeds breaking through the cracks. Following Parsifal's lead, having actually broken the Holy Spear in Act II in what seems like a terrible act of religious vandalism in order to make it into a cross, the refugees also come together to abandon their little bits of religious iconography, throwing it into the sand-filled coffin of Titurel. The stage empties to be filled with the light of Redemption, and the magic that is Wagner's Parsifal resounds to fill the hall and the heart of the listener.

Links: Bayreuth Festival, BR-Klassik

Wagner - Die Walküre (DNO, 2014 - Webcast)

Richard Wagner - Die Walküre (DNO)

Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam - 2014

Hartmut Haenchen, Pierre Audi, Christopher Ventris, Kurt Rydl, Thomas Johannes Mayer, Catherine Naglestad, Catherine Foster, Doris Soffel, Marion Ammann, Martina Prins, Lien Haegeman, Julia Faylenbogen, Elaine McKrill, Wilke te Brummelstroete, Helena Rasker, Cécile van de Sant

The Opera Platform - March 2016

Aside from the merits of the music and the compositional qualities - which since they are among some of the most revolutionary innovations in opera history are not negligible - the modern day relevance of Wagner's cycle of Ring operas as work of literary value and human meaning is rather more debatable. There have been some impressive productions in modern times that have explored Wagner's ideas on mythology for its cultural and national significance and attempted to relate them to wider concerns, but the works seem to resist efforts to impose contemporary meaning and relevance on them.

The real strength of Der Ring des Neibelungen lies, perhaps surprisingly, in its qualities as a human drama. Prevailing thought on the works considers that there is very little human context in its recounting and reworking of the stories of the Gods of Norse mythology, but particularly in Die Walküre (and even in the earlier prologue Das Rheingold), the conflicts between family members and how they look upon other races all have very recognisable human characteristics. At the very least, the treatment of tells us a lot about Richard Wagner's ideas and his own personal views and life.

That doesn't necessarily need to be brought out in a production of the Ring, but it is important to recognise the human characteristics that lie within it, and it's also important to recognise that the work is best served not with a concept, but with adherence to its tremendous dramatic qualities. Based only on a viewing of Die Walküre (which is at least the centrepiece of the whole Ring cycle), Pierre Audi's 1999 production for the Dutch National Opera doesn't appear to be a high-concept one, but its strength is in how it plays to the sheer theatricality of the drama.

There might well be a theme followed through in the subsequent parts of the Ring cycle, but as far as this production of Die Walküre fares on its own merits the work fairly reverberates with dramatic tension in its own conflicts, domestic and celestial alike. The stage for Pierre Audi's production is semi-abstract, consisting of a wooden circle (or ring) with a cutaway section within it to accommodate the orchestra with just enough use of props and objects to cover the various locations used in the opera and retain its more familiar characteristics, such as Nothung and the Valkyrie, in a recognisable form.  The Valkyrie in particular look the part with shiny wings fitted to their arms.

The tilted wooden circular stage gives the performers sufficient room to stride across it dramatically, and stride it they do, without being strident in the singing. That could well have been the case in the second act at least with the casting of Doris Soffel as Fricke, who can sometimes come across as shrill and weak in places, but the emphasis on the dramatic delivery puts paid to that and Soffel also gives one of her better performances here. Striding across the stage with walking sticks with goats heads atop them also gives her the kind of air of menace and authority that Wotan should be unable to stand up against, and that's no mean feat when Wotan is as strong a performer as Thomas Johannes Mayer.

The curved wooden planking in a variety of wood tones that also suggest a less garish version of the rainbow bridge (of more use presumably in Das Rheingold), are also surprisingly versatile when it comes to other key moments in Die Walküre. Streams of fire appear at the appropriate points for Brünnhilde's fate at the end of the work, which when supported by changes in the lighting, prove to be just as effective as required, without going overboard. The consistent minimalist approach suits the purposes of the production and its emphasis on the drama more than the spectacle, but it also allows focus to be placed on that other effective dramatic quality of Die Walküre - the singing.

There's a fine cast capable of achieving that in this 2014 recording of this production, a production that has gone through a number of line-ups and changes in revival since its first performances in 2005. That's immediately apparent from the casting of Christopher Ventris as Siegmund and Catherine Naglestad as Sieglinde in the first act. These are solid performances with the kind of lyrical quality that you want from the brother and sister lovers (Audi detects a Tristan und Isolde moment between them in the sharing of a drink and plays well up on it here). Kurt Rydl plays against them as Hunding, with a little bit of wobble, but still wonderfully sonorous. Catherine Foster is a fine Brünnhilde who holds it together wonderfully through to the finale.

All would be to little avail if the musical performance didn't capture the sense of 'human' drama involved, and wasn't up to the task and fortunately Hartmut Haenchen manages proceedings well. Whether it's anything to do with the orchestra being up there in the stage-pit and more closely connected to the drama I couldn't say, but the reading was measured, sensitive and soulfully Romantic, mindful of the importance of the leitmotifs in this work and giving them almost physical form.

Links: The Opera Platform, Nationale Opera & Ballet

Gluck - Iphigénie en Tauride (Geneva, 2015 - Webcast)

Christoph Willibald Gluck - Iphigénie en Tauride

Grand Théâtre de Genève, 2015

Hartmut Haenchen, Lukas Hemleb, Anna Caterina Antonacci, Bruno Taddia, Steve Davislim, Alexey Tikhomirov, Julienne Walker, Michel de Souza, Mi-Young Kim, Marianne Dellacasagrande, Cristiana Presutti, Wolfgang Barta

ARTE Concert - 4 February 2015

Gluck's musical reforms for opera are still recognised as important to the art form today, as to a certain extent is the primacy of the drama in his subjects. Composed in 1779, Iphigénie en Tauride is rightly regarded as the best example of the application of Gluck's approach to opera as drama. It's not so much that it's about putting plot and action at the centre of the work or applying a fluid through-compositional approach that integrated recitative and reduced the ornamentation of arias. The real innovation that can be seen in Iphigénie en Tauride, above and beyond these other significant reforms, is the psychological depth that the work contains.

So although Iphigénie en Tauride innovatively opens without an overture, plunging us straight into musical evocation of a storm, and even though it is Greek mythology, there's a human element underlying it that might not have been so evident in previous operatic explorations of these classical subjects. That's not a character that is lacking in the works of Handel or in other notable Baroque opera seria composers of course, but in moving away from the individual expressions of emotional turmoil in the ornamented da capo arias, Gluck does find a greater dramatic wholeness that is less academically tied to structure, less interchangeable in generic sentiments, and more willing to explore real personalities and interaction between people.

In Iphigénie en Tauride, the central relationships that draw out the themes of the drama are between Iphigenia and Orestes, and between Orestes and Pylades. The significance of this is most evident in the initial encounter between Iphigenia and Orestes, neither aware of who the other is, each believing the other dead. Without quite taking the musical language as far as Richard Strauss would take it some 150 years later in Elektra, this scene nevertheless explores just as incisively and vividly that same background, the sense of loss, horror and devastation that has visited the house of Agamemnon. Similarly, Orestes' scenes with Pylades explore the theme of friendship which might not be traditionally a strong emotional theme, but here Gluck makes it so and also - since one of them will die for it - makes it tense and dramatic at the same time.

And thereby, makes it human and not just some elaborate ancient tale of violence and revenge out of mythology involving long wars and the will of the gods. Some of the elements of Lukas Hemleb's production for the Grand Théâtre de Genève perhaps emphasise this division (mythology/human drama) and the links between them by using life-size puppet doubles for the characters. Claus Guth used a similar technique in his 2001 Zurich production of Iphigénie en Tauride as a device to psychoanalytically explore those divisions in the personalities of the characters, but Hemleb's intentions appear to be different, extending it to the nature of the drama within the opera itself. In as far as this is relevant to Gluck's treatment, it does undoubtedly emphasise the composer's particular way of exploring the conflict between actions and feelings beyond the traditional opera seria format.

Visually, the production has a strong presentation in Alexander Polzin's set designs that give a distinctive look and feel to each of the three acts without straying too far from its Greek theatre origins. A semi-circle stone amphitheatre in Act I, with most of the chorus all carrying dummies with identical masks, gives that impression of a Greek drama being played out as well as it being a temple, a place where the High Priestess Iphigenia and her followers sacrifice any foreign visitor who unwittingly arrives on the shores of Tauris. Act II closes in on the human drama of the friendship between Orestes and Pylades, by taking place mainly within a small confined space at the back of the temple/amphitheatre set. Act III is mostly empty stage and darkness, but a wider perspective shows the temple hanging above, with stalactites hanging dramatically over the drama that is impressively reaching its conclusion.

The puppets and doubles can be a little over-elaborate and not strictly necessary as an assist to Gluck's already highly evocative musical score. In Act II they can even almost work against the simplicity of the scene, when you not only have Orestes and Pylades in a cramped cell, but two life-sized puppets of them and two handlers as well. Essentially however, the purity of the Greek drama with its morally instructive dimension and the place of humanity within it are well served by the set designs. The singing, fortunately, also plays towards this purity and wholeness of drama and expression, without over-elaboration or unnecessary ornamentation. These are mythical characters and this is Greek drama on a grand scale, but the singing here really gives these larger than life figures a relatable human quality.

In this respect Anna Caterina Antonacci is outstanding as Iphigenia. Her voice holds firm, her characterisation is strong, the sense of trauma she has endured is credible, as is the dilemma she must face. That key scene meeting between Iphigenia and Orestes is played superbly and sung for all the import that is within it. Her brother Orestes here is sung by Bruno Taddia, and sung well, but it's more than a little overacted by comparison. On the other hand, how else are you expected to inhabit someone who is so consumed with guilt over the killing of his own mother Clytemnestra, and still in shock from her murder of her husband and his father Agamemnon? The singing is strong too in the other roles, with Steve Davislim's Pylades establishing a strong connection Orestes. Hartmut Haenchen's conducting of the musical performance was fine, but didn't bring out the vivid colours that are there in Gluck's score.

Links: ARTE Concert, Grand Théâtre de Genève

Gluck - Gluck 300 Years (Blu-ray)

Christoph Willibald Gluck - Gluck 300 Years

Alceste - Stuttgart, 2006
Constantinos Carydis, Jossi Wieler, Sergio Morabito, Catherine Naglestad, Donald Kaasch, Bernard Schneider, Catriona Smith, Johan Rydh, Michael Ebbecke

Iphigénie en Tauride - Zurich, 2001
William Christie, Claus Guth, Juliette Galstian, Rodney Gilfry, Deon van der Walt

Orfeo ed Euridice - Royal Opera House, 1991
Hartmut Haenchen, Harry Kupfer, Jochen Kowalski, Gillian Webster, Jeremy Budd

Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray

In terms of content, this release is a fine way to celebrate Gluck's 300th anniversary, collecting what are quite simply three of the greatest works of opera ever written. All three operas are key works of Gluck's reform period, the purest examples of the composer's intentions to reduce extravagant ornamentation and bring opera back to its fundamental purpose as a means of dramatic expression. As such they are all derived from classical Greek dramas, mythological in scope but human in sentiments, profound in their meaning and exquisite in their musical arrangements.

Each of the productions differs in terms of musical performance and stage interpretation, but all are faithful to Gluck's vision of the pure music-drama. Orfeo ed Euridice is performed in its original Italian version, Iphigénie en Tauride in its original French version, Alceste in the 1776 French revision. While the quality of the performances is indisputable, the fact that all three operas are contained on one single BD50 Blu-ray disc might give a clue that quality of the video transfers for this release is far from expected High Definition standards.

Alceste - Stuttgart, 2006
There are a few odd touches in the 2006 recording of Stuttgart's full French edition of Alceste (complete with the concluding six-movement orchestral suite by Gossec), but other than the 20th century setting - some kind of combination of funeral parlour, recording studio and meeting house - there's nothing too unusual attempted in Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito's production. There's something oratorio-like about Alceste's grand choruses and funeral marches, with individual dramatic expressions of grief, despair and prayers as Alceste sacrifices herself, Apollo having promised that the dying King Admeto will be spared if someone worthy takes his place. That all comes across exceptionally well here.

Despite the lack of typical dramatic action, all the human drama of Alceste is taken to the limits and wrapped up in the music and the singing. The work is given a magnificent account here in the Stuttgart production conducted by Constantinos Carydis, and the singing gives full expression to the trials of human life held to the cruel and unfathomable whim of the Gods. Catherine Naglestad gives a strong, unmannered performance of dramatic intensity as Alceste, Donald Kaasch is a dignified lyrical Admeto. The chorus work is sublime.  

Iphigénie en Tauride - Zurich, 2001
Musically pared back to its pure emotional core, it's debatable whether Iphigénie en Tauride requires any further stage elaboration, but Claus Guth highlights the psychological depth that underlies the trauma of the characters by picking up on the (pre-)Freudian undercurrents, expressing them in dreams where papier-mâché doubles continually re-enact their nightmares and drive their actions. It's evidently not going to be to everyone's taste, but it is an interesting and valid interpretation of the opera's content, and it does indeed bring out - or perhaps overstate - elements that otherwise might pass by unnoticed.

Under William Christie, the orchestration presents the work in a clear, bright, stripped-back arrangement. It's less full bodied than other recordings I have heard, sounding like a chamber orchestra here presumably using period instruments. Both Juliette Galstian as Iphigenia - restrained, clear and with beautiful diction - and Rodney Gilfry as Orestes, take advantage of the spacious arrangements and sing purely, emotively, without needing to dramatically overstate.

Orfeo ed Euridice - Royal Opera House, 1991
The Royal Opera House's 1991 production of Orfeo ed Euridice from 1991 still stands up pretty well musically and it manages to reveal the aching beauty of the opera, but there are some curious staging elements in Harry Kupfer's direction that never quite add up to a consistent concept. Although fully staged with attention to mood and situation, the chorus are lined-up in rows in an extended orchestra pit in formal dress, and the singers too on occasion lapse into concert performance mode with the music score open before them as if they are in some kind of mentally abstracted state. Doubles are used and Amor speaks to Orfeo through their young child. The dress is contemporary 1990s casual, Orpheus looking like a pub folk singer, but the journey through Hell after the death if Eurydice is no less real and dramatically intense in this version.

The best thing about the performance is the countertenor Orpheus of Jochen Kowalski. There's a beautiful clarity and strength to his voice that reaches those extremes of Orpheus' mental state with tremendous force of expression. Eurydice is passionately delivered by Gillian Webster and Amor is enchantingly sung by Jeremy Budd. Hartmut Haenchen conducts a well-balanced version of the original 1762 Italian version of Orfeo ed Eurydice.

There are some terrific performances here of these great Gluck masterpieces and I was looking forward to seeing them upgraded to HD, but the transfers on this Blu-ray are very disappointing. Basically, it appears that the old DVD masters have just been transferred across to HD format, with all three operas contained on a single BD50 disc. The image and sound are reasonably good, and certainly acceptable for Standard Definition presentation, but on a large screen or projected, none of these will meet High Definition requirements. The image is soft, the transfer exhibits and perhaps even enhances the familiar flaws found in old video transfers. Alceste and Iphigénie en Tauride are 16:9 widescreen, while Orfeo ed Eurydice is 4:3.  Each performance comes with English, French, German, Spanish and Italian subtitles.

You're actually at a slight disadvantage with the BD release. The DVD version of this collection is a box set that collects each of the operas as individually cased DVDs. For convenience or uniformity, the BD release has PCM stereo on all performances, dropping the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix of Iphigénie en Tauride. There is no chapter selection on the Blu-ray, just the option to choose which opera to view, and there is no pop-up menu functionality. You can however find chapter-listings for each of the productions in the enclosed booklet. In addition to the three operas on the Blu-ray there is a "bonus" in the form of an hour-long film "Winds of Change, Winds of Love" by Inger Aby, a dramatised meeting between Gluck and his student Salieri, where the elder master advises on how success in Paris is as capricious and unpredictable as the wind.

It's undoubtedly convenient to have all three operas gathered together on a single BD disc, and the performances of these three great works are all well worth having, but very disappointing that this is not a true High Definition release.

Wagner - Der fliegende Holländer

Richard Wagner - Der fliegende Holländer

De Nederlandse Opera, 2010

Hartmut Haenchen, Martin Kušej, Robert Lloyd, Catherine Naglestad, Marco Jentzsch, Marina Prudenskaja, Oliver Ringelhahn, Juha Uusitalo

Opus Arte

If you like your Wagner staged in the traditional manner, then this production won’t be for you. If however you think that the themes in Wagner’s work – fatalistic romantic destinies, love, duty, power, suffering, the conflict between tradition and modernity – have a timeless quality and can resonate with its subject no matter what the setting, then you might be inclined to at least understand why a producer might want to relate those themes in a way that is relevant to a modern audience. The question with the De Nederlandse Opera production of Der fliegende Holländer however is whether they take it too far and perhaps take too many liberties with the opera.

Der fliegende Holländer however, is not a late Wagner work, the composition not conforming precisely to the musical standards that the composer would later set, nor indeed in the very specific manner in which it should be presented. Written around the same time as Rienzi, Der fliegende Holländer certainly points towards that direction and is a fascinating opera to examine the beginning of Wagner’s progression, but it is still curiously imbalanced between the newer style and the influences of old, more conventional Italianate opera practices, and the switch between them can be quite jarring in parts of the opera. Since we can’t go back however and consider the opera and its relevance afresh through the eyes of a 19th century audience – and since even Wagner used mythology to speak to a contemporary audience of modern ideas for a Germanic art and principles – we have no choice but to consider the opera from a modern perspective in any case.

Director Martin Kušej takes advantage of the somewhat schizophrenic split in the opera itself between tradition and modernity in order to present it meaningfully to a modern-day Dutch audience.  There are no longer sailing ships sailing the seven seas for years at a time - ship navigation, seafaring and commerce are all very different now, so if you think about it in modern terms, it shouldn’t really be surprising to see shipping in terms of cruises and ferries, the Dutchman here arriving on a Norwegian ferry, his crew asylum seekers, looking for a homeland, a place to settle after a lifetime of being tossed around as refugees on the seas of conflict and revolution.  It shouldn’t be difficult either to consider the arrival of these figures being perceived as a threat to those who enjoy a comfortable western bourgeois lifestyle.

Whether those multicultural subjects have any place in a Wagner opera is for the opera lover to consider (or not, should such interpretations not hold any interest for traditionalists), but it strikes me as a valid response to the themes of Der fliegende Holländer, and – most importantly – it’s presented here in a manner that doesn’t undermine or lessen the importance of the other eternal themes in the opera and the subjects that held meaning for Richard Wagner, namely the loss of one’s homeland, a consideration of what is a sense of homeland, and all the associated themes that go alongside it where love, family, stability and security count for more than richness and social climbing in a globalised society where money talks. Those subjects are treated with utmost reverence in this production, and the reason why they can be given a modern spin is because the opera is so powerful in its expression of them, tying them deeply into a mythology that does indeed hold mystique and attraction in the legend of the Flying Dutchman, but also in the use of the sea itself – a powerful symbol in any guise, but even more so here in the musical expression and embryonic use of leitmotif that Wagner employs so evocatively.

While I feel that the opera’s themes are done justice to in this production then – but I can quite understand why it might not work for everyone – what is just as important and ultimately persuasive here is the performance of the opera itself. Quite simply it is sung and played magnificently and comes across particularly well in the stunning sound reproduction that is presented on the Blu-ray edition. Not only are the voices of Juha Uusitalo and Catherine Naglestad superb in their range, control and power, but they blend together most marvellously as a singers and as the couple of the Dutchman and Senta. This is totally a 5-star production in terms of performance and singing alone (as well as for the quality of the Blu-ray) – but it is also a sincere, interesting and fascinating attempt to relate the opera to modern themes. If the concept is perhaps a slightly imperfect fit, or slightly inconsistent with the original intentions of the opera, Der fliegende Holländer was always an imperfect opera in the first place – but, like this production, no less fascinating for those perceived flaws and inconsistencies.