This Dutchman is not finished yet. Even as a child, he had to watch as his mother had an affair with Daland somewhere in the middle of nowhere in a small town with uniformly dull, bare and sterile brick facades and mighty firmly closed entrance doors in red and blue uniform chic, was stood up by him and – shunned and shunned by the village society as a foreign outsider – committed suicide. A traumatic encounter, and so the new production of The Flying Dutchman at the Bayreuth Festival on 25 July 2021 begins with scenes of this childhood catastrophe shown during the overture.
On this very special opening day of the Bayreuth Festival (after last year’s forced break due to coronavirus under complicated hygiene conditions), it quickly becomes clear that it is not only the main character who has unfinished business. For what Dmitri Tcherniakov formulated in theory as a basic directorial idea is far too little practically realised and quickly comprehensible. The personal revenge on Daland in particular still needs some explanation and could be told in more detail, and the at times very static choruses could also dramatise much more of the interesting directorial idea.
But Bayreuth would not be Bayreuth if there were not the possibility of further development and change. Fortunately, we have already experienced this so often in other productions in the “Bayreuth Workshop”. Appropriate, but not actually new: the inner, psychological interpretation of the material interests the popular Russian director. Dealing with trauma versus revenge. Or: Is redemption (from childhood trauma) possible through revenge?
The rest is the programme. Years later, the Dutchman returns to the city to find, or take, his own personal redemptive revenge. After all, like many Wagner heroes, he is just an “egoshooter” from which the composer himself shines through. Undeterred and determined, the Dutchman sets off on his search and finds Daland in something like a warmly lit harbour pub in the midst of the partying inhabitants. In the director’s appealing set design, it is the houses with their currently fashionable architecture that populate so many of today’s popular new-build neighbourhoods in the suburbs and thus, in their universality, provide an excellent template for the universality of basic psychological patterns.
It’s a pretty little alternating pattern of houses, between which the material of “The Flying Dutchman” takes place, but which is just as capable of creating abysmal family tragedies behind closed doors behind any other house façade. Houses and façades shift, twist and turn, sometimes forming sterile rows of houses illuminated by the cold, forbidding light of street lamps. It is striking and beautiful to look at.
As the Dutchman serves beer in the lively pub, tongues loosen. Attilio Glaser sings a veritable, alcohol-fuelled pub story about the “South Wind” as the helmsman at the outside table. Interrupted by insinuating laughter from the other beer drinkers, the aria is reinterpreted in an obnoxious, double-meaning way. In addition, you have to imagine the cosy world with beer in this cold suburban world, which becomes very comprehensible and tangible with his beautifully flowing and lyrically comprehensible tenor, sung expressively and broadly.
Georg Zeppenfeld’s Daland is more reserved and civilised, which makes him even more sinister. After all, he has a dark past, now covered up and suppressed by his family with wife and daughter in their chic new-build home. Zeppenfeld’s luxurious bass with exquisite musicality and creative ability is predestined for this role. He knows how to adapt to his singing partners in the duets in a variable and flexible way. In Wagner’s world, in addition to the “ego shooters”, it is strong women who take matters into their own hands when things get tight. In this respect, Senta in the “Flying Dutchman” is no exception, even if all too often her part is interpreted differently in the productions, degrading her to a naive, childlike girl.
Tcherniakov also gives this impression for a long time: Asmik Grigorian’s debut at the festival begins as a defiant, snotty girlie in a yellow sailor’s mackintosh. With over-emphasised gesticulation, provocatively smoking and a revealingly heartfelt reach into Mary’s brown handbag, she snatches the image of the Dutchman hidden inside from the prudish prude. Mary, like her, dreams of the Dutchman – a beautiful directorial idea to portray this social double standard. But what a Senta she is on this premiere evening! As an unruly teenage girl with a vehemently lascivious demeanour, she creates her entry into the ballad of the second act in a spherical, delicately accentuated sound with a velvety timbre, perfectly nuanced and animated.
Grigorian has such an expressive and strong stage presence that it takes one’s breath away even during the performance under the corona mask requirement, which was rigorously implemented this evening. Of course, the Latvian soprano also revealed some ailments on this evening, particularly in the changes to the lower registers with a tendency to be slightly forced in the dramatically lower passages – but her singing ability to convey the content and intention of the direction and the role so impressively and with such a youthful, slender height, beautifully shaped and animated, made her Bayreuth debut a (new) discovery and an impressive addition to her presence on the Green Hill. Papa Daland brings Senta her dreamed-of sugar daddy Dutchman home with her: excitedly and willingly, she soaks up all of the Dutchman’s sounds and insinuations in the presence of her parents at the richly laid dinner table on the glassed-in veranda of their home, and one could be forgiven for thinking that she herself is the next prey for the bald old man on her parents’ gift table.
After all, she too just wants to get out of this dump. As an extra, she is assisted by a mother who not only disapproves of this, but is obviously also aware of her husband Daland’s infidelities. It is not only for Senta that things turn out differently than expected: When, in the third act, the Dutchman’s gang starts their corona-induced counter-song and their boss suddenly shoots three men in a very statically staged melee, Senta is furious and shocked. She wants to confront him but is only rudely pushed aside by the avenging Dutchman.
Mary enters the scene: Marina Prudenskaya plays and sings Mary with a full-bodied timbre and expansive intensity, who quickly shoots the Dutchman as a disappointed, jealous lover. Senta’s vow of loyalty to the death is thus fulfilled. Realising this, she bursts out laughing. It’s nice that it’s her turn to forgive: she takes the gun from Mary’s hand and embraces her, giving her comfort. Ultimately, this also saves the composer’s idea of redemption.
John Lundgren gave a Dutchman who had to struggle with indispositions in more than a few places. The Dutchman’s aria in the first act was nevertheless adequate, with strong, appropriate outbursts and dense creative power. The clarity of the text and the presentation of large arcs of tension could still be improved.
Eric Cutler’s Eric was captivating with his melancholically savoured phrasing, which was beautifully suited to the role in a compassionate, whiny but radiantly heightened way. Struggling with choleric attacks that almost lead to physical violence against Senta, but crying out in a wailing manner in the percussive movement itself, Senta already showed herself to be the strong woman dreamed of by the composer when she immediately wants to comfortingly and forgivingly doctor him.
The precise acting and lip movements of the chorus members on stage made it almost impossible to notice that the choruses, conducted in parallel in the choir hall by Eberhard Friedrich in individual Plexiglas booths and integrated into the Festspielhaus via fibre optic cables in front of the stage and, depending on the direction of play, with up to 60 loudspeakers in the stage set. Nevertheless, the expansive plasticity could not be achieved, especially in the third “choral act”. In addition, the restrained characterisation caused some static and boring randomness.
The first time a woman conducted the festival orchestra attracted particular attention: Oksana Lyniv’s first appearance at the festival was a success. Starting the passages of the storm-tossed overture at seemingly breakneck tempi, she did not get tangled up in them. The way in which the orchestra emphasised slow passages such as the broad Steuermann-Lied and the airy, light and bouncy “Spinnrad-Musik” of the second act also testified to the meticulous rehearsals and work with the well-organised festival orchestra, which has a second “backup” orchestra at its side for the festival period in the event of a corona infection. Occasionally, a few (few) holes in the tension were revealed by too abrupt tempo changes.
Boos for the choir at the end were completely out of the question, while the thunderous applause with some stomping on the Bayreuth wooden floor seemed like a relief for all involved after hopefully surviving a long cultural break.