The Dutchman Flies Again

Truly outstanding productions of Der Fliegende Holländer are almost as rare as the proverbial good woman. Finding a cast and conductor suited to the particular demands of the score is only part of the problem. In this, Wagner’s first regularly-performed opera, the drama itself requires a sensitive negotiation between the narrative’s naturalistic elements and the music’s own rich powers of evocation. The realism of the workers’ industrial setting is placed alongside the orchestral swelling of the sea, which like the Dutchman himself represents the turbulence of human existence, and our longing for release. Directors have traditionally been caught between following Wagner’s original stage directions or adopting the more abstract representations popularised at Bayreuth since the second half of the twentieth century. The former risks…