By Montague Gammon III.
That is very much the message that comes through when talking to Virginia Opera’s Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor, Adam Turner, about the upcoming production of The Flying Dutchman, which got grand reviews at the Glimmerglass Festival in New York State, and at Hawaii Opera Theatre.
For one thing, the ghostly status of the title character has not diminished his testosterone. Bare-chested and tattooed with the image of the ghostly galleon in which his character sails the seas, bass-baritone Met/Chicago/SF/LA/Santa Fe Opera veteran Wayne Tigges will make his Virginia debut as a memorable heartthrob, a spirit who is most definitely more “earthy,” in the term of one Albany reviewer, than ethereal.
Published descriptions of the show promise an intense sensuality of sets, lighting, costumes and most especially of acting, all augmenting Wagner’s rich music, and very much in keeping with the composer’s concept of wholly blended, unified total musical drama.
Stage director Francesca Zambello and set designer James Noone have literally added another dimension to conventional staging. Ropes and netting that dangle above to the raked stage – that is, one that is tilted toward the audience – provide playing space; performers climb them, much as sailors would scale the rigging of a sailing ship.
Composer Richard Wagner blended his own real experience of a nightmarish, literally storm-tossed sea voyage with long-standing stories of ghost ships, with the legends of Ulysses voyaging decades to get home to his wife and of the “Wandering Jew” seeking redemption, into a libretto about a cursed captain who can only find peace when a woman faithfully and completely loves him.
The Virginia Opera staging partners Tigges with Christina Pier in the role of Senta, the young woman who falls for the Dutchman. It’s Pier’s first Wagner role, but local audiences will remember her compelling performance in the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos two seasons ago.
Turner draws a parallel between the romance of the spectral Dutchman and his mortal lover and the current pop culture fascination with romances between supernatural and human characters such as the Twilight Saga, and sees a link there with the sensual design and staging of this production.
Another generation might find kinship with the more benign and sentimental Ghost and Mrs. Muir novel/movie/sit-com tales, but seafaring men have longed for female company since the first canoe cast off. Stories promising redemption through romance and through self-sacrifice have been around for uncountable centuries, and tales of seductive spirits since the dawn of humanity.
Stories of ghost ships doubtless go back millennia as well, to the first time a crew was lost after abandoning a vessel which then, vacant, drifted ashore or was spotted by other mariners. Just a few weeks ago a story about the newly-discovered mummified corpse of a solitary sailor, still at his desk on his drifting yacht some 7 years after he was last heard of, made its way onto the internet. On his desk was a love letter to his late, estranged wife, and a picture album of their times together.
Wagner’s Dutchman had sworn that he could sail around the stormy Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa, though hell should bar his way. The Devil punished that hubris by cursing the sea captain to sail the seas forever, unless he could find a faithful lover.
“A woman who of very love would sacrifice herself for him…the quintessence of womankind… the Woman of the Future,” Wagner wrote, according to English musicologist Ernest Newman.
Turner says that every one of his friends who saw the show in Cooperstown, N.Y., made comments such as, “I’ve never had a more thrilling night in the theatre!”
The Flying Dutchman Richard Wagner
April 8 @ 8:00 p.m., 10 @ 2:30 p.m., 12 @ 7:30 p.m.
Harrison Opera House 160 W. Virginia Beach Blvd., Norfolk
(Llewellyn Avenue at Olney Road)
For tickets and information visit vaopera.org or call 866.673.7282.