OPERATIC SEAFARERS TURNED LANDLUBBERS
Santa Fe, NM—Did we see the Mother Lode country with its colorful miners living it up, maybe? Or the giant water sluices of Hoover Dam’s power plant?
Any guess about site or scenery is possible at “The Flying Dutchman,” an opera that composer Richard Wagner thought he wrote about seafarers. And about a curse, like a majority of the operas the first week of August here.
So once again (as in “Rusalka”), the revisionist decorators have struck with their zany brainstorms to torpedo—-hey, isn’t that sea-faring, sort of?—-a resplendent vocal outpouring. This was arguably the most memorable of the five-opera Santa Fe Opera season provided you were wearing blindfolds.
Robust male voices worthy of Wagner’s home-field stamping grounds enkindled the production led by bass-baritone Nicholas Brownlee in the title role, giving the entire cast the rock-solid foundation notes of the accursed sea captain. No less impressive was the other—dare I say it?—sea captain Daland, with baritone Morris Robinson, the catalyst to the Dutchman’s introduction to the fair Senta who might lift his curse via betrothal.
Especially adroit was the Senta of soprano Elza van der Heever, growing ever more powerful and compelling as the tragedy was unfolding. This made for an extra element of drama, pacing toward a formidable finale. She never got hoops to jump through, but she did have to clamber on and off a dining room table in a floor-length wedding dress—-clearly the feat of the week.
This most tuneful of all the Wagner operas ranging from tragico-dramatic to folklike sounds, brought out the pit orchestra under the young German Thomas Guggeis. The rafter-ringing opera chorus was at its best, even in carrying out the clumpy sailors’ dance.
Bad enough that the Dutchman wore a gaucho hat. The dead sailors of his ship looked more like J. Robert Oppenheimer clones than any Ahab-like crew.
Once this 68th season is past, and the work of Scenic Designer Paul Steinberg working with Director David Alden is laid to rest, perhaps future designers can actually read the scenario and stage directions? Sometimes, there’s good reason for telling it the way intended.
Other oddities: The Steersman got no wheel on the bridge to steer, and the village women’s act-two spinning wheels, all turning in time to the music, are banned as well in this reprise. I rather expected the ladies to be manipulating laptops.
SANTA FE OPERA (NM) in Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman” in German. For info: santafeopera.org or (505) 986-5900.
