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Der Fliegende Holländer – review

This article is more than 11 years old
Royal Festival Hall, London

Zurich Opera's new production of Richard Wagner's Flying Dutchman opened a week ago, so it was somewhat surprising to see it popping up in London this Saturday evening. The post-colonialist staging, by Andreas Homoki, sounds a rather curious affair, so it's as well that the one-off London visit was a straight concert performance, allowing the audience to concentrate on the musical delights afforded by the superb cast, led by Bryn Terfel and Anja Kampe (both making their Zurich debuts).

Terfel and Kampe were heard as the Dutchman and Senta at Covent Garden a few years ago, but their command of the roles seems, if anything, to have grown since. Both combine a natural lyricism with vast reserves of vocal power, producing an intensity of emotion and brilliance of characterisation that quite blows away the supporting cast and conveys beautifully – even to those with little time for Wagner's uber-Romantic storyline – the sense that the doomed lovers are cut from a different cloth to the rest. Kampe's portrayal of Senta as a woman thoroughly confident in her crazed ambition to make the ultimate sacrifice provides the perfect foil to Terfel's inscrutable fury. That said, the great Finnish bass Matti Salminen made an authoritative and unusually lovable Daland, making the concluding trio of Act II a particularly glorious moment.

As Eric, Marco Jentzsch held his own vocally, but offered no reason for anyone to question that Senta would be far better off with her glowering Welshman, however brief the intended honeymoon. The conductor ,Alain Altinoglu, has a real gift for listening to his singers and players, and gives them plenty of room to flex their muscles. The Zurich Opera Orchestra and Chorus more than repaid this trust, building on some very detailed and thorough preparation to deliver a superbly energised and paradoxically joyous rendition of Wagner's tragedy.

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