The Metropolitan Opera, flagship of American opera companies, was sailing into stormy seas as it staged a new production of Wagner's Flying Dutchman. Wagner's early and compact tale of redemptive love has inspired several bizarre and controversial productions in recent memory and New York Wagnerians wondered if the Met would enter the fray with an experimental production, or if it would adhere to the more conservative aesthetic of its new Ring cycle. To its credit, the Met did neither, producing instead a compromise Dutchman. The new production, first staged in December 1989, is both beautiful, thought provoking, and unlikely to ruffle the feathers of conservative audience members. It may, in fact, presage a new type of Wagnerian staging that combines the best of both experimental and conservative productions.
The Flying Dutchman is loosely based on several legends of a Dutch sea caption doomed to sail the seas for eternity, unless he finds the love of a faithful woman. Wagner's version opens on the storm-ridden coast of Norway, where two ships arrive to take shelter. The Norwegian caption Daland meets the mysterious and morbid Dutchman who, without disclosing his identity, reveals the great wealth he carries on his ship and promises to give it to Daland if Daland's daughter Senta will consent to marriage. In the second act, Senta faces an imposing painting of the legendary Dutchman and is inspired to sing an obsessed ballad about the unfortunate sailor; the Dutchman himself soon arrives and the two fall instantly in love. In the final act, the Dutchman discovers Senta with her former suitor, a simple hunter, and, believing Senta untrue to him, he takes to his ship. Senta cries after him and flings herself from a cliff into the sea, thus redeeming the Dutchman from his cursed wandering and releasing him to death.
In this, the earliest of his works that Wagner allowed to be performed at Bayreuth, all of the great Wagnerian bugaboos are already present. Love occurs at first sight, and is only consummated in a death/transcendence at the end. The principle character is a wanderer, a restless, tormented figure who pursues redemption in a hostile world. Women are generally passive and neurotic. There is a tendency to lump materialism, practicality, and everyday sanity together, and oppose them to Wagnerian spirituality. And everywhere throughout the music and libretto is the distinct shadow of Richard Wagner himself, calling for our pity and admiration.
Years after the original success of the Dutchman, Wagner claimed the opera was an "inchoate" and not fully realized representation of his claims, the essence of Wagner comes through with exceptional clarity in this work. This clarity and its generally manageable proportions have made it a popular opera for companies both large and small.
Yet, even though it is a popular work and is not infrequently staged, the Dutchman still gives directors headaches. Its stage action requires the usual Wagnerian excess - in this case two ships, a typhoon, one suicidal cliff leap, a sinking boat, and an ascent of the lovers to heaven. These difficulties, and contemporary distaste for heavy-handed Romanticism, have led many directors to rework the libretto, update things, and give symbolic or surreal treatment to the work. Indeed, some new twist or Post-Modern insight is almost demanded of new productions of the Dutchman.
A quick survey of recent Dutchman performances
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