the still point of the turning world

I've never been much of a fan of opera - I don't like the vocal style, way too much vibrato for me - but since my sister started working for an opera company I've been to a few of their shows, and what's become really apparent is that I really do enjoy watching opera. The music might not be entirely to my taste, but I get properly sucked into the story, even when it's moderately silly.

So on Thursday I went to see "The Flying Dutchman", which is my favourite Wagner in the sense that I don't actually like Wagner but this one is fun. We did a concert performance of it about fifteen years ago^* and I remember thinking that the chorus bits were glorious and the orchestral parts were a lot of fun, but that the arias and duets were super dull. I did suggest to my sister that I should take a book to read for those sections, but it didn't seem like it would really work with the house lights down...

But honestly from the moment where the horns come in with the Dutchman theme at the start of the overture, I was busy watching. The interval came at the end of Act I, and we were slightly concerned at the prospect of a 1hr 50min second half, but in fact we were startled at the end to realise that it really had been almost two hours and we hadn't noticed.

Of course it's a ridiculous story; I haven't even tried to make sense of the theology of the Dutchman's damnation. Senta has fallen tragically in love with a portrait, and jerks her boyfriend around pretty thoroughly ("what are you moaning about? how can he even threaten you he's a portrait and a song, not a real person!" one day later "yeah so we're getting married"). The Dutchman hears Senta's dad praising her and immediately decides that she'll make a perfect faithful-until-death wife even though he has tried this dozens of times before and failed every time with the resulting literal damnation of all his exes... and when she fails, is like "that's it! now I am truly doomed forever!". Senta's dad meets a strange man who apparently has a bunch of jewels and instantly decides "yep! this looks like a son-in-law!!!". Generally this is a story full of numpties.

There were also quite a number of weird staging choices: two scenes (Senta and Erik talking, and Senta and the Dutchman falling in love) where glitter fell on them, which my companion thought was snow but my sister says was ash; a recurring bit where Senta runs around the stage in a circle while wearing a bright red dress for no obvious reason; a Mysterious Bed that keeps turning up in the background of the scene - Senta is born in it and her mother dies in it in an opening montage (during the overture), purpose otherwise unclear (my sister muttered something about liminality, but I can't see why...); and in the dockside party (the No 1 best bit of the opera for sure) there's a section where the men sing a spooky Dutchman song and then sing about how terrifying it was to hear while we sit there going "WE SAW YOU SINGING IT" (although my sister informs me that in fact they were possessed when they sang the spooky bit, which I admit in retrospect would justify their freakout); we had no idea what period it was supposed to be set in except that there were some early-twentieth-century costumes around and the Dutchman was either wearing a leather jacket (my impression) or a velvet jerkin (another friend's impression - which would have been a nice "look, he's from the past!" moment so I hope they were correct).

But in the moment none of that actually mattered because I was way too busy enjoying the show (and particularly every instance of the Dutchman theme).

^* it was in March 2013 and I know this because I was in an orchestral rehearsal when they elected Pope Francis; otherwise I would have absolutely zero idea...

I do think I need to go and watch more opera, even if I'm still probably not going to go listening to it on recordings. Although IIRC there wasn't much of interest to me in next year's programme, so it might be a while!