Student guide to Richard Wagner’s Romantic opera

The Flying Dutchman (Der fliegende Holländer)

at the Detroit Opera House, Oct. 19-27, 2013

QUICK INFO • Opera in three acts • Set amongst the fjords of Norway, in the 18th century • Premiered January 2, 1843, at the Königliches Sächsisches Hoftheater (Royal Saxon

Court Theatre, now known as the Semperoper) in Dresden, Germany • Music and text (or as he loftily called it, “Dichtung”—poem) by German composer

Richard Wagner (1813-1883)—his 4th opera • Based chiefly on German poet Heinrich Heine’s version of the Flying Dutchman

legend in Heine’s unfinished comic novel, Aus den Memoiren des Herrn von Schnabelewopski [From the memoirs of Herr von Schnabelewopski] (1833)

• Sung in German with English translations projected above the stage • Running time about 2½ hrs

‘IT’S COLD OUT HERE ON THE HIGH SEAS, BETTER STICK MY

HAND IN MY JACKET’: Richar d Wagn er i n Paris , a s dr awn

arou nd th e t i me of th e oper a ’s composit ion , 184 2, by his (and also Heine’s ) fri end , art i st E . B . Ki et z.

BROODING ROMANTIC POET, WATCH HIM AS HE BROODS:

Heinri ch Heine, u pon w hose writ in gs Wagn er ba sed hi s st or y. 183 1 portrait

by Moritz Da niel O ppen hei m, wh o was, l ike Hei ne, a Ger man J ew .

Thomas Ga zh el i as t he Dutch man , with Eva Johan ss on a s Senta , in a 2012 producti on at

Beij ing’s National Centr e for th e Per formin g Arts . Ph ot o by Wang Xia oj ing .

THE STORY (Adapted from Naxos Records:) The Dutchman, having blasphemed, is condemned by Satan to sail the seas with his ghostly crew until he is redeemed by the pure love of a woman. After a stormy overture, the Norwegian sea-captain Daland's ship casts anchor, and a strange ship comes to rest alongside. The latter’s crew is hailed by Daland's steersman, but they do not answer the call or the invitations offered by the local people, who celebrate the return of their men-folk. The Dutchman himself, captain of the ghostly ship, allowed every seven years to go ashore temporarily seeking a wife, asks Daland for hospitality, offering him rich reward and showing an interest in Senta, his daughter. Daland invites him to meet her. In Daland’s house, where the women sit spinning, Senta has long been preoccupied by the story of the Dutchman and fascinated by his portrait. Erik, a huntsman, loves her and tells her his dream, in which he saw Daland bringing home a stranger. Senta, however, is still more preoccupied with her vision of the strange seafarer, whom her father now brings home. Senta's love, it seems, will bring the Dutchman the redemption he seeks. He overhears Erik, however, reproaching Senta for her infidelity and resolves to leave her, thinking she is not the faithful love he sought. As The Flying Dutchman sails into the open sea, Senta struggles free from Erik. Singing “Hier steh’ ich, treu dir bis zum Tod” [Here I stand, true to you until death], she leaps from the cliff in a pure act of love—the kind of commitment that the Dutchman needed to finally be released from his eternal seafaring. The Dutchman's ship and crew of spirits sink at once in the waves, and he and Senta are seen rising Heavenward. THE CAST OF CHARACTERS (AN D SINGERS) Daland, a Norwegian sea-captain

• Turkish bass Burak Bilgili Senta, his daughter

• American soprano Lori Phillips (Oct. 19, 23, 26)

• Swedish soprano Elisabet Strid (Oct. 25, 27)

Erik, a young man in love with Senta • American tenor John Pickle

The Dutchman, a curst sea-captain • German bass-baritone Thomas

Gazheli (Oct. 19, 23, 26) • American bass-baritone

Kristopher Irmiter (Oct. 25, 27)

The production at the Detroit Opera House will feature the Michigan Opera Theatre Orchestra and Chorus, led by American conductor Steven Mercurio, with staging by French-American director Bernard Uzan. INSPIRATION STRIKES ON THE HIGH SEAS (OR DOES IT?) Wagner claimed that the idea for The Flying Dutchman came to him while he was undertaking a particularly rough journey by sea. Heading towards London with his wife Minna in 1839, a sea crossing that should have taken eight days turned into three and a half weeks, as the ship, called the Thetis, was tossed about violently in the storm-ridden waters of the North Sea. Wagner was particularly inspired, he said, by the shouts of the sailors, which echoed powerfully against the seaside cliffs. The whole situation, Wagner would later claim in his autobiography Mein Leben [My life], inspired in him the idea of writing this dark nautical drama. However, as there is no evidence that he began work on the opera until eighteen months after his journey, Wagner’s account of the inspiration for his piece may be just as much a myth as the supernatural story of the curst Dutchman itself. Discuss a particularly momentous, thrilling, or frightening voyage you might have taken in your lifetime, whether by car, ship, bicycle, Detroit People Mover, etc.! How would you adapt the setting or circumstances of that journey to transform it into a story fit for the stage?

The Fl ying Dut chm an (ca .

1896) , by Am eri can paint er Albert

Pin kha m R yd er , h eld at the Smiths onian

Am eri can Art Mus eu m in

Was hingt on, DC. Note t he t hr eateni ng

cras h of t he waves, the pani cked sai lors in the for egr ou nd,

and th e dim gh ostl y ship fl oating in th e

backgr ound .

MUSIC TO MA KE THE HEA D SPIN Act Two of begins with the women’s chorus as Norwegian village-girls, working at spinning wheels in the home of Daland. Like the composer Franz Schubert before him (in his 1814 song “Gretchen am Spinnrade”—Gretchen at the spinning wheel), Wagner here writes music that winds round and round on itself, to mimic the action of the spinning wheel. Over these “spinning” strings, the girls sing a sprightly little tune, celebrating their work and eagerly awaiting the return of their sailor-boys. (Translation adapted from Lionel Salter’s:) Summ und brumm, du gutes Rädchen, Whir and whirl, good wheel, munter, munter, dreh dich um! gaily, gaily turn! Spinne, spinne, tausend Fädchen, Spin, spin a thousand threads, gutes Rädchen, summ und brumm! good wheel, whir and whirl! Mein Schatz ist auf dem Meere draus, My love is out there on the seas, er denkt nach Haus ans fromme Kind; thinking of his dear at home; mein gutes Rädchen, braus und saus! my good wheel, roll and roar! Ach! Gäbst du Wind, er käm geschwind. Ah! If you’d raise a wind, he’d soon be here, Spinnt! Spinnt! Brumm! Summ! Spin! Spin! Whir! Whirl! Fleissig, Mädchen! Brumm! Summ! Busily, girls! Roll! Roar! Gutes Rädchen! Tra-la-ra la! Good wheel! Tra-la-ra la!

Find instances of various poetic devices or figures of speech in Wagner’s text: for example, end rhyme (rhyme that appears in the final syllables of lines), assonance (repetition of vowel sounds), consonance (repetition of consonant sounds), onomatopoeia (words that “sound like” the action or phenomenon that they convey), apostrophe (directly addressing not the listener, but rather some separate entity, e.g. a spinning wheel).

What effect do these various devices create? Does the musicality of the language, the similar vowels and consonants running rapidly into each other, somehow enhance the “spinning” effect developed in the music?

Mot her and Child at a Spinnin g

Wh eel (1904 ), by J oha nnes Weiland , hims el f a Dutchman .

The Paintin g Dut chm an!

— Michael Yashinsky, yashinsky@post.harvard.edu — — Michigan Opera Theatre Communications Department—