Germany Wagner, Der fliegende Holländer: Soloists, Chorus of the Hamburg State Opera, Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra / Kent Nagano (conductor). Hamburg State Opera, 19.1.2024. (DM-D)

Production:
Director – Michael Thalheimer
Sets – Olaf Altmann
Costumes – Michaela Barth
Lighting – Stefan Bolliger
Dramaturgy – Ralf Waldschmidt
Chorus director – Eberhard Friedrich
Cast:
Daland – Liang Li
Steersman – Daniel Kluge
The Dutchman – Tomasz Konieczny
Mary – Katja Piewek
Senta – Wendy Bryn Harmer
Erik – Benjamin Bruns
The stage was in full view when the doors to the auditorium were opened some 30 minutes before the beginning of the opera. From ceiling to floor, numerous thin threads were strung, like loose strings on a string instrument, vibrating, reflecting the light. There seemed to be one layer of these, from left to right, forming a kind of barrier toward the front of the stage. This line of threads remained all there was in terms of scenery, with the area in between the threads and the orchestra pit sometimes lowered, sometimes lifted. Later, most ingenious lighting effects were created with these threads. Depending on where the light was directed, the threads formed triangles, or other shapes, on the two-dimensional level of the boundary between what was in front of them and what was behind them.
Moreover, cue lights were arranged so that the threads appeared to be covering the space all the way, or at least a good way, toward the rear wall, creating a virtual or revealing a genuine labyrinth. Sometimes the characters ignored the threads, sometimes they interacted with them, mainly by clinging to them. The light used for these cues in relation to the threads was consistently bright and white, colours were not used. Towards the beginning of the overture, on the border of the line of threads and the space in front of it, a black heap became visible and started moving. It turned out to be a human being wrapped in a black bin liner, and in due course, Senta freed herself from her wrapping and left the stage. Such bin liners were later used by the Dutchman’s crew, whipping the ground with them and whirling up the fake gold dust used to represent the gold the Dutchman gave to Daland.
Such a sparse set with such imaginative lighting was sufficient to stimulate the imagination in line with the music. Michael Thalheimer has been a very successful theatre and opera director for many years. Even if you did not intellectually follow every twist and turn of his production, the overall, holistic impression was one of unity, not only of the plot itself, but complete with the music.
When the production opened in 2022, Kent Nagano was criticised for his slow pace. The production was announced at two hours 25 minutes though on this occasion, it finished ten minutes earlier than that. Helped by his strong cast and superb chorus, Nagano’s reading emphasised the character’s emotions and the overall mood of the opera – the romantic ideas associated with the seas, the rough lives of the seamen, the loneliness of their daughters or wives or mothers, and the wild tales that capture these extremes, such as the tale of the Flying Dutchman. Thalheimer’s production depicted all the characters as somehow driven, each in his or her own particular way. Nagano conducted the score accordingly, evoking a sense of the inevitability of fate.

Tomasz Konieczny sang the Dutchman, giving each of the character’s many facets finely chiselled expression. There was pride in his existence, even in his awful destiny, when he revealed his identity. There was pride in his wealth, there was self-disgust and self-despair, particularly that no woman so far had been faithful, there was even some contempt for Daland that it was so easy for him to buy his daughter. And hope, so much hope, of finding someone faithful in Senta, and even more heightened misery when he believed her to be unfaithful as well, having eavesdropped on her encounter with Erik. The richness of vocal nuances was truly impressive. Liang Li brought his even, sonorous bass to Daland, predominantly a tired seafarer happy to return home and to see his daughter married off well in a stroke of good fortune. Daniel Kluge rendered the Steersman’s song with a bright and clear voice.
I have seen several productions of Der fliegende Holländer in which a mezzo-soprano is cast as Mary whose name was still well known, who was once renowned, even, but the small role of Mary was all this singer was just about capable of near the end of her career. Fortunately, this was not the case for this production. Katja Piewek was an authoritative but friendly Mary, singing with an engaging, fresh and well-balanced voice. Benjamin Bruns sang Erik, initially somewhere between lyrical and character tenor, but developing into heroic tenor mode as the plot, score and production unanimously suggested his increased passion, culminating in ‘Willst jenes Tags du dich nicht mehr entsinnen‘. Wendy Bryn Harmer’s voice had a white, glaring foundation which took me some time to get used to. However, her vibrato was even and her intonation precise. She rose to the top notes across the performance with ease and formidable power, while balancing volume at will.
Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe