Another Director Sabotages Wagner Narrative

This is the time of year when things are sufficiently quiet that I can catch up on Great Performances at the Met programs that I saved for “rainy day” viewing. Yesterday’s viewing might almost count as “ancient history,” given how much has happened during the current decade. The program was the rebroadcast of a video of a production of Richard Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer (the flying Dutchman) that made its Metropolitan Opera debut on July 5, 2020. This was a new staging by François Girard, and the music was conducted by Valery Gergiev. (See what I mean by “ancient history?”)

The first-act set of Daland’s ship and crew (from the Great Performances Web page for the opera being discussed)

This was one of those occasions when none of the cast members were familiar to me. Soprano Anja Kempe made her Met debut in the role of Senta, and the title role was taken by bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin. Bass Franz-Josef Selig sang the role of Senta’s father, the sea captain Daland. The role of his Steersman was sung by tenor David Portillo. Senta’s hapless suitor Erik was taken by tenor Sergey Skorokhodov.

These were all solid vocalists, all of whom definitely had the right chops for Wagner. They were also serious enough about the music and the libretto that, to the extent that it was possible, they could rise above the absurdities of Girard’s staging. This was one of those directors that seems to prefer shock-treatment to coherent narrative; and while, for the most part, he provided a straightforward account of the first-act encounter between Daland and the Dutchman, the second act turned out to be one absurdity after another.

The context for this act involves a setting of all the village maidens working hard at their respective spinning wheels. Unfortunately, none of those spinning wheels were in sight. Instead, the stage was filled by a row of suspended heavy ropes (which looked like they were more suitable for tying down Daland’s sails than for weaving). This initial vision paved the way for a series of settings that seemed to have been the product of a “cunning plan” to undermine the entire narrative of the opera.

Every now and then, however, the attentive viewer would be relieved of this nonsense. The narrative itself is not particularly kind to Senta, and there are any number of occasions when any sensible viewer would dismiss her as just plain bonkers. Nevertheless, Kempe brought convincing sincerity to her encounters with the three “men in her life,” her father Daland, the Dutchman (of whom she has dreamed, presumably for some considerable period of time), and Erik, who tries (with no success) to bring her back to reality.

This seems to be one of those cases in which the actors were more capable at telling a good story than the director was.