The Flying Dutchman was always going to be the obvious choice for Irish National Opera (INO) to venture into Wagner territory. At a little over two hours and with an uncomplicated plot by Wagnerian standards, it could be counted on not to scare off those who lack the stamina for the four-hour epics of the later music dramas.

The Dutchman is a cursed ship captain doomed to wander the seas for having invoked Satan. His only reprieve from this predicament occurs once every seven years when he can come ashore to seek a faithful wife who can break the curse. After befriending the captain Daland, the Dutchman conspires to marry his daughter Senta, a young woman who just so happens to be obsessed with his legend. She vows to be true to him and when the Dutchman’s ghostly identity is unmasked, she proves her loyalty by throwing herself into the sea, freeing the Dutchman from his eternal torment.

Dramatic tension
Despite the linear plot, the main challenge for any director lies in maintaining the dramatic tension throughout the many extended arias in which the momentum grinds to a halt. In Act I, for instance, Daland, his Steersman and the Dutchman appear one after the next with lengthy solo arias explaining their individual backstories. The music may be wonderful but it makes for terrible theatre and most contemporary productions will try to offset this stasis with all sorts of stage mechanics, lighting effects and so on. The absence of such technical facilities at the Bord Gáis meant that carrying off a convincing production was always going to be a challenge.

Limited to an immobile stage piece, set designer Francis O’Connor opted for a slanted ship deck with a central mast as the main prop. This seamlessly transformed into a fish factory for the opening scene of Act II and a harbour in Act III with the addition of a lighthouse. While modest in appearance, the staging underscored the maritime theme and the raising and lowering of sails in the background provided some visual interest. Less convincing were the moving images projected onto the backdrop. The first of these featured a ship on the horizon and resembled a video game from the 1990s which tended to draw attention to the ‘budget’ nature of the staging.

Giselle Allen in The Flying Dutchman (Photo: Patrick Redmond)

Directorial choices
In her programme notes, director Rachael Hewer stated that she wished ‘to trust the music, trust the characters and the story’. However, Wagner is perhaps not the best composer to trust when it comes to audience engagement and this was tested during many of the arias that often left the protagonists singing in statue-like poses. Many of the directorial choices were also a little uninspired such as having the Dutchman helpfully making a sandwich for Senta during their intense love aria at the end of Act II.

The intended trump card was a subplot involving the child Senta who appeared during the overture reading about the Dutchman legend from a storybook. At the opera’s conclusion, she was hoisted dead from the sea implying that the whole opera was a tragic fantasy in the mind of the little girl. As a framing concept this wasn’t a bad idea, but it wasn’t fully integrated into the production, and having her run between the various townswomen throughout the overture distracted from what should have been one of the opera’s musical high points.

In any case the performance of the overture turned out to be extremely laboured with the transition from the opening fanfare to the woodwind chorale taking an absolute age. Indeed conductor Fergus Sheil’s control over the musical pacing throughout was rather uneven. The overall tempi tended towards the slow side but this wouldn’t have been such an issue if the connecting musical tissue between the major arias (accompanied recitative, linking sections, etc.) had been moved along at a brisker pace. Musically unimportant sections, particularly in Act I, were frequently pondered over for far too long which blunted the impact of the dramatic highpoints. The orchestra acquitted itself reasonably well but there were moments of insecurity and blending issues, the most pronounced being a particularly shrill contribution from the offstage piccolo trio in Act III.

James Creswell and Gavan Ring (Photo: Patrick Redmond)

Performances
On the positive side, the scenes involving both the male and female choruses were extremely well choreographed and their sound was full-bodied and well projected. Amongst the singers, baritone Jordan Shanahan as the Dutchman, bass James Creswell as Daland and tenor Gavan Ring as the Steersman all gave commanding performances. Lighter in tone was tenor Toby Spence but this suited his character of Erik, Senta’s jilted suitor. Giselle Allen gave a good performance as Senta but she overdid the vibrato and had to strain to reach the climactic high notes.

INO have been on a roll with nearly all of their recent productions, but this attempt at Wagner struggled to leave the same impression. Ultimately, the opera needed more incisive direction of both the music and the drama to put wind into the Dutchman’s sails.

INO’s The Flying Dutchman runs at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre until Saturday 29 March. Visit www.irishnationalopera.ie.

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