Lyric Opera of Chicago is off to a flying start with its new-to-Chicago production of Richard Wagner's The Flying Dutchman. Magnificent performances by the leads and chorus—not to mention masterful work by Lyric's orchestra, conducted by Music Director Enrique Mazzola—complement thoughtful production design and make for a tremendous evening at the opera.
The Flying Dutchman, perhaps Wagner's most accessible work, is the tale of Senta (Tamara Wilson), a young woman living in a coastal village who obsesses over a painting of the ghostly Dutchman (Tomasz Konieczny), who's been condemned to forever sail the world's seas, setting foot ashore every seven years to search for salvation by way of a woman's love. Senta's father (Ryan Capozzo), a steersman, coincidentally meets the Dutchman at sea—and enters into an arrangement wherein his daughter will wed the cursed sailor. That's an agreement Senta is only too happy to fulfill—but it wouldn't be an opera if all went according to plan.
Wilson (who last year performed the role of Elvira in Lyric's Armani) performs Senta with great aplomb. Director Christopher Alden has her and her fellow performers gradually build in energy over the course of the 2 hour, 20 minute opera (performed without an intermission) and her Senta is wrenching in the finale, as the outcome of the arrangement with the Dutchman is determined.
Baritone Konieczny and tenors Capozzo and Robert Watson (as Erik, Senta's previous suitor) are equally effective. Alden also makes spectacular use of the chorus, whose chants sometimes seem to emanate from different points in the auditorium.
The works in Wagner's repertoire, more than those of any other composer, seemingly lend themselves to reevaluation and re-staging. Alden's notes say he intended for the production to "confront head-on the unholy connection between Wagner's art and the spectres of Fascism and antisemitism." He adds that, "It feels like these impulses continue to re-appear in our world with with nearly the same relentless regularity as the docking of of the Dutchman's ship every seven years."
As such, the production is rife with Holocaust iconography—the Dutchman's crew, trapped below deck, wear the familiar horizontal stripes of death camp prisoners, for example. I did not agree with Alden's decision to mount the entire stage at an angle, which was distracting more than anything else, but the starkness of the set, as well as the dark references to relentless industry and labor (epitomized by the Dutchman's wheel—transformed at times to a continuously spinning factory gear) gave new depths to Wagner's familiar tale.
The Flying Dutchman runs through Oct. 7. For more information, see lyricopera.org .
