The Flying Dutchman, Opera North review - a director’s take on Wagner

Saturday night could have given us the opportunity to witness the Opera North debut of Canadian soprano Layla Claire at the Grand Theatre, as well as Annabel Arden’s new production of The Flying Dutchman.

Sadly, the first of those was reduced to her “walking” the role of Senta on the night, while Mari Wyn Williams sang the part from the score at the side of the stage. It proved a remarkable performance from each of them, but naturally not the experience that had been planned. The production as a whole, however, and the contributions of the other leading singers – Robert Hayward as The Dutchman, Clive Bayley as Daland, Edgaras Montvidas as Erik and The Steersman, and Molly Barker as Mary – were something to both admire and to be challenged by.

This Fliegende Holländer (it is sung in German, side-titled in English translation) makes a point of Opera North’s unique role as a Theatre of Sanctuary by seeing the Dutchman as archetype of the stateless and voiceless, and indeed those rejected asylum seekers of our society.

So there’s no ghost ship, not even any realistic rigging for one. The sea is there: how could it not be, in light of Wagner’s score? It’s projected in video from the start (quite a calm sea, however, and intriguingly reversing its tidal flow in a split second at one point), but the protagonist and his crew are clearly those who have crossed it to make landfall: ship, if not boat, people.

Arden and set, costume and video designer Joanna Parker translate the main location to the UK Home Office – little doubt about that (although the large illuminated lettering of “The … Office” may arouse expectations of another comedic experience altogether for some). But sea captain Daland has become the Home Secretary, complete with red box, and his minions, distraught bureaucrats all, dash around with laptops and print-outs, while computer code hovers as a kind of statement that remorseless digital doom rules the fate of those who seek their help. Each of the three acts opens with voice recordings of real people who have experience of seeking refuge in this country and their differing stories, to make it absolutely clear what we’re meant to be thinking about. Senta is still Daland’s daughter, and the roles of Erik and Der Steuermann are unified, so that he is both her would-be lover and her father’s right-hand man.

It's observed by the creative team (in a programme booklet article) that in the great duet for Senta and the Dutchman in the second Act, each refers to the other in the third person throughout: so Senta embodies a model of elevated empathy for him as the status-less one, as much as – maybe rather than – physical passion. That’s a stretch in interpretative terms, as is the fact that Daland and his team have become securely land-based, rather than seafarers themselves. Wagner apparently wanted to avoid any suspicion that Daland could be seen as a figure of fun, but rather a serious capitalist-entrepreneur: in this portrayal Clive Bayley – always an expert at facial expression, with an instinct for comedy well proven in the past – did arouse a titter from the audience early on, in his Yes, Minister style reaction to the Fleeing One’s first appearance. And in Act Two Senta sings her Ballad of the Flying Dutchman to a cheerful chorus (who have been sorting through abandoned garments, rather than spinning thread to make any) as an out-and-out theatrical turn … maybe she had light-weight thespian ambitions before meeting her Great Disruptor?

I’ve admired Annabel Arden’s work with Opera North ever since her wonderful The Magic Flute, and her more recent production of Aida for them was brilliantly successful in its subversion of the glorification of militarism inhabiting the text and music. This directoral-theatre approach embodies a sincere focus on a real moral issue, so I wouldn’t pull at its weak links overmuch. The virtues of the musical achievement by the company, under music director Garry Walker’s baton, are very strong indeed. Robert Hayward certainly makes the Dutchman sympathetic, singing with full tone, warm vibrato and stamina throughout; Clive Bayley is by no means the baleful baddie he can portray, but lively and almost completely consistent in voice production over the whole span of the near-three-hour opera; Edgaras Montvidas (pictured above) has a glowing tenor tone that he husbands carefully, hitting a ringing climax in the last Act; and Mari Wyn Williams was exceptionally intelligent in integrating her singing to the action she was seeing but could not take part in – the final trio (Dutchman, Erik and Senta) reached a superb peak that rounded off the whole performance.

The Orchestra of Opera North (with the pit extended four rows into the normal stall seats) was colourful and dramatic under Garry Walker. And the power of the Chorus of Opera North (from whom Molly Barker is drawn as an excellent Mary) at its fullest is something to cherish – thank goodness that they are there in such strength. The offstage sound in the first Act was oddly faint – certainly compensated for (perhaps over-compensated?) by the end as the sound system relayed it to add to the on-stage throng. 

Opera North say Layla Claire (pictured above, with Robert Hayward) intends to sing the remaining performances as planned.

• More opera reviews on theartsdesk
• Further performances on 8, 11, 14 and 21 February in Leeds, and on 8 March at Newcastle Theatre Royal, 15 March at Lowry, Salford, 22 March at Nottingham Theatre Royal, and 28 March at Hull New Theatre