Opera of the Week is muscular, blue-collar Wagner – The Flying Dutchman
mainOur weekly choice from OperaVision is a Lithuanian production of Flying Dutchman – Der fliegende Holländer –
sung in German with English subtitles, from an open-air production in a Baltic shipbuilding yard.
Klaipeda State Music Theatre goes where no Wagner has gone before. Director Dalius Abaris uses the long summer nights on the Baltic coast and the latest sound technology to bring the story vividly to life. The conductor is Modestas Pitrenas.
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Wow – the sense of spectacle at moments like this is amazing https://youtu.be/jn0kJOQ_y-g?t=5807
Thanks so much
Thumbs up!
Take the time to watch the video…a tremendous production. (I guess it won’t travel…!)
Very impressive, Norman, many thanks. Excellent production, conducting, solo singing, chorus, playing, especially horns and percussion. I’d be very glad to have been tghere.
Individual performances may not efface memories of Hans Hotter, Karl Liebl, Wunderlich, Dorati or Furtwaengler, but this is a triumph for Lithuania, conductor Modestas P:itrenas, and Klaipeda State Theatre.
I’ve heard the first half our and will return to it soon. Wagner was really into Redemption, wasn’t he, in this Dutchman, Tannhaeuser, Parsifal, the Ring. He had a heavy conscience, besides genius.
The tiny Heidelberg Opera staged the “Dutchman” every week with photo projections and a Czech bass named Hruska when I was there, but not like this. .
It’s being done again during their season of you happen to be in Lithuania at the time! This season lasts till Aug. 4, so if you want to travel…
TFD was the first whole opera I ever saw, on TV, in b&w, when I was about 13. I hated it and it put me off Wagner for years. THIS was sensational — a momentous, original and innovative production, great singing, and by now I have been a Wagnerite for a very long time, so I very much appreciate the chance to revisit this piece, which I have often thought I should, with such a stunning presentation.
Thanks a million to NL and SD for the alert — however, Operavision has its own YT channel, so you can continue to look at what they pick too. But if all NL’s recommendations are in this class, I will be taking them.