The aura that changes realities

You know, it happens to me time and again that colleagues from the Italian repertoire say to me: since I'm changing over now and also want to sing Wagner, I'll start with the short and easy part of the Dutchman. And every time I hear that, I try to gently point out to the person concerned that they are making a colossal mistake. When Wagner wrote The Flying Dutch man, he was only 29 and, as always with his visionary genius, wanted to pack everything conceivable into this one role, to express himself with it. But his experience of how much he was allowed to ask of singers did not really keep pace with his experimental and forward-looking drive at the time. In other words: the role may not be too long, but in terms of challenges, it is one of the most difficult Wagner wrote in my field. So if you want to approach this composer, it's better to start with a different role, the much easier Amfortas, for example. That's why I didn't include the Dutchman in my repertoire until relatively late in my career. There were two early concert performances in my career in which I dared to tackle the role for the first time, as well as a staged production at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein.

But it only really took off after the pandemic: at the New York Met, in Chicago, at the Bavarian State Opera, in Bayreuth, where I even alternated between Wotan and the Dutchman one summer because a colleague was ill, and so on. So the right time in my singing life had to come before I could focus more on the Dutchman. Now it fits well! From that point of view, it's not so bad that I didn't introduce myself to the Staatsoper audience as the Dutchman earlier - although I have of course been able to follow performances of the current Mielitz production very closely in all the years since the premiere.

It begins with the first scene of the Dutchman. Without any opportunity to warm up, the audience is presented with this twelve-minute monologue, which goes straight to the point: the tonal range to be mastered is a challenge in itself, in addition to constantly changing, often contradictory dynamic and rhythmic requirements and countless technical finesses. The finale is even trickier. Basically a powerful recitative and not an aria, in which immense tension and energy are concentrated. At this point, the Dutchman interpreter must de facto single-handedly bundle the entire dramaturgical conclusion of the opera as if in a vanishing point by vocally expressing the enormous, deeply tragic despair of the title hero.

Unfortunately, Wagner did not ideally support this final outburst or breakdown in the orchestra, so that singers have to be extremely concentrated and controlled in their vocal technique in order to succeed. Of course, there are wonderful moments between these two extreme peaks, such as the duet with Senta, which starts very quietly at first and then builds and builds, carried by the orchestra - it really is like a great Italian opera! Nevertheless, everything stands and falls with the monologue at the beginning and the recitative at the end of the opera. You could even say that all the difficulties and different technical requirements that the three Wotan/Wanderer roles have separately are waiting for the interpreter in the one role of the Dutchman.

I had already conceived my own production for my Baltic Opera Festival, which was then realized by others due to time constraints. But in February 2028, I will actually be directing a new production of my own in Dortmund. Without giving too much away, just this much: I want to show a person who is controlled by a compulsion to constantly do the same thing against his will. So I'm sticking to Wagner's basic idea of the agony of eternal repetition, but I'm going to change this outwardly spooky aspect a little so that he doesn't end up with a different woman every seven years.

Yes, he is, just like all Wagner heroes. Why are we so unsympathetic to Alberich? He does nothing really wrong and pays a high price for his decision. Nevertheless, we don't like him. Why? Because he is not (or no longer) capable of love. Wotan is different. Although he does a lot of crooked things and even leads the world to destruction, he remains a sympathetic figure to the end - because he loves. If Fricka has her way, he even loves far too many other women. In this, by the way, he is an alter ego of the composer. On the other hand, all the great Wagner heroes are - at least at times - macho. So they can fall in love, but whether it turns into a mature love, including the willingness to take on responsibility, must be considered separately.

The mature lovers, the wiser, the more responsible ones are usually the women in Wagner's work, which is why they are also given the task of redeeming the man, a society or even the whole world. What I find so daring in the story of the Dutchman is the fact that all the women the Dutchman meets are expected to be unconditionally faithful and any misstep is punished with their death. Someone comes ashore after seven years and wants an eternal, undivided bond within a day. That's a bit much to ask, especially when you consider how some of Wagner's men treat fidelity!

I think the Dutchman is only sent to those families where there is actually an unmarried young woman that he can really love and who can really love him. Otherwise there would be no point in these country outings at all. So he does not meet Daland by chance, and the question of whether he has a daughter is only an apparent one, as the Dutchman already knows the answer in advance. It is therefore not surprising that the Dutchman and Senta are instantly attracted to each other. At the same time as love breaks out, however, the Dutchman's hope of redemption also springs up immediately, even if he basically no longer believes that there could be a woman who is one hundred percent faithful. That's the romantic thing about this opera, the fact that we have virtually lost hope but continue to hope - because we love.

This is a very important point that I would also like to emphasize in my own production. But it's also true in general: all of a sudden, transformed by his love, the Dutchman is no longer concerned with himself, with his salvation, but with the salvation of other people. When I worked on Alberich with Sven-Eric Bechtolf almost 20 years ago, we asked ourselves why the curse of this derided outsider had such an elemental effect. And we agreed that everyone can get into emotional states in which they are able to create a kind of aura that allows great changes. So every person is capable of changing fundamental realities. And somehow, in our case, Senta seems to succeed - again through love - in bringing about that very central paradigm shift in the Dutchman that finally makes redemption possible.