On this day 1843 Richard Wagner’s opera “The Flying Dutchman” premieres in Dresden. We suggest you to watch the masterful film adaptation of the opera (1975).
The Flying Dutchman is one of Wagner’s most intricate artworks. He reviewed the score at least three times after the four performances in Dresden and was reportedly considering even more changes until his death. In 1841 Wagner lived in Paris, where he hoped that the Opera would take his new work, and almost all of Le Hollandais’s score was written there. His first intention, with French performances in mind, had been to compose a one-act work that could be performed before a ballet. A night at the Parisian opera was unthinkable without dancing. When this plan failed, he rebuilt it in three acts, linked by intermezzos. That’s the shape this version follows, though the most significant of the differences between it and The Flying Dutchman as we usually hear it comes from the setting: the familiar opera takes place in Norway, whereas Wagner’s first impulse, following the Heine poem on which it was at least partly based, had been to set it on the coast of Scotland. The transition to Norway before the premiere of Dresden appears to have had no dramatic reason, but a pure piece of self-centeredness on the part of the composer. Wagner, who wanted to increase his identification with the title character, therefore made a connection with his own maritime adventures off the Norwegian coast.
Director: Vaclav Kaslik.
Cast: Donald McIntryre (Dutchman), Catarina Ligendza (Senta), Bengt Rundgren (Daland), Erik (Hermann Winkler).
Conductor: Wolfgang Sawallisch with the Bayerische Staatsorchester
The conducting of Wolfgang Sawallisch is quite simply spectacular and the highlight of the performance. Swift and on the move from start to finish in a grandiose performance from the Bavarian State Orchestra. Sawallisch conducts Wagner´s earlier version of the score as performed in the Dresden premiere with the so-called “blunt” ending of the ouverture and without the Tristan-inspired redemption music.
