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Der Fliegende Hollander

Published Tuesday 24 February 2009 at 15:55 by George Hall

Bryn Terfel returns to Covent Garden as Wagner’s Flying Dutchman. He does not disappoint. His wide-ranging instrument is ideal for the role of the accursed sea captain. Though his first scene is not ideally focused, later on he sounds out the recesses of the complex, tortured character with nuanced subtlety as well as weight.

German soprano Anja Kampe triumphs as Senta, the young woman whose obsession with the Dutchman leads her to defy sense and convention and sacrifice herself for him. Her singing is not of the bludgeoning Wagnerian soprano type. Instead, she explores the role from inside out, drawing on the pale lyricism of her instrument as much as its cutting edge.

Both Torsten Kerl as Senta’s rejected lover Erik and Hans-Peter Konig as her father Daland give high-quality accounts.

Modern costumes by Constance Hoffman and lowering sets by Michael Levine support a production by Tim Albery that is at its finest in the intimate scenes but produces some striking images for the crowded set-pieces, where the Royal Opera chorus is on sensational form.

The version performed is the conflation of the piece into one long act that Wagner planned but never executed. More controversial is the decision to perform the earliest version of the score, with the overture and the entire opera shorn of their expansive revised endings. But there’s some thrilling playing and conductor Marc Albrecht does an impressive job.

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