Bryn Terfel and Anja Kampe in The Flying Dutchman at Royal opera House. Photo: Clive Barda
A new production of Der fliegende Holländer (director is Tim Albery) premiered at Covent Garden three days ago. The Daily Telegraph is most enthusiastic about it. Here are some excerpts:
Bryn Terfel's Flying Dutchman appears a haunted and weary man, who seems to know from the start that his bid to break the curse that binds him to sail the seas for eternity will fail. He starts his great monologue Die Frist ist um, The Time is up, in a chilling sotto voce, which builds to a magnificent outpouring of rage, fear, despair and a thread of hope.
In fabulously good voice, carving a majestic legato line, Terfel goes on to give a performance of the grandest Wagnerian stature and, if nothing quite matches the impact he makes in this opening scene, the fault is Wagner's, not his. The remainder of the opera is dominated by Anja Kampe's equally powerful Senta [...] she sings this killingly difficult role with thrilling abandon and intensity, etching a sharp characterisation of a neurotic obsessive on a psychologically suicidal course.
Tim Albery's admirably lucid and focused production frames these two unforgettable interpretations with an abstract but undistractingly modern setting, designed by Michael Levine. [...] The conductor Marc Albrecht makes a great success in his Covent Garden debut, sustaining a long (two and a half hours, without an interval) but deeply rewarding evening. Refusing to rush things or whip up excitement with empty fortissimo, he establishes a firm underpinning dramatic pulse and relishes the passages where Wagner lets his hair down and pays tribute to Weber's folksy charm with a catchy, lilting tune.
Read the whole review here
ROH - Dutchman web page
