San Francisco Opera's Dutchman: Flotsam and Jetsam

Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) holds a unique place in the composer's body of work: it's easily the most of accessible of his major operas, containing set pieces, arias, duets and other trappings that fit well within the casual fan's expectations, including a relatively straightforward, familiar-feeling plot. There aren't any rings, knights, swans, grails, Gibichungs, and other strange and alienating elements to deal with. There's no incest taking place and no convoluted family trees of  gods to figure out. Musically it's also unique in that it has actual tunes which stick in one's head after hearing it as well as a healthy dose of  what makes Wagner's music so, well, Wagnerian. It's his one opera that can easily entertain and educate newcomers to his music as well as deliver the goods to the die-hard Wagner freaks. If Dutchman were a Woody Allen film (and wouldn't Wagner love that analogy?) it would be Sleeper- a classic in its own right, but one that only hints at what's to come. But despite all it has going for it, it's not bullet-proof, and the current San Francisco Opera production which set sail Tuesday night at the War Memorial felt like sitting through Shadows and Fog- a lot of assembled talent used to very little effect.

It obviously didn't help matters when General Director David Gockley fired the director and set designer Petrika Ionesco a week before opening night for murky reasons which reek of the usual "artistic differences," but that reason doesn't quite add up because it's a co-production with Belgium’s Opera Royal de Wallonie, which premiered in Liege in 2011, with- that's right, Ionesco at the helm. So what gives? If it sucked in Liege, wouldn't Gockley know that way before last week? Like two years ago?  I don't pretend to know how these things work, but it can't be all that complicated and one wonders why these things weren't ironed out beforehand if Gockley felt elements of the Liege version weren't suitable for the provincial sensibilities of San Francisco (by the way, as I mentioned in yesterday's post, what I found online of the Liege production looks pretty damn good). From the audience's perspective it's hard to know the exact toll axing Ionesco has had on the production, but it's undoubtedly had a domino effect and even elements of the production which aren't up to snuff (the costumes by Lili Kendaka either irritate or bore, depending on the scene) that may have had little to do with it become tainted by the contretemps, I've already heard of it being referred to as "Dutchgate."

Things go awry from the very beginning when one of the most thrilling overtures ever written for an opera got an unexpectedly slapdash treatment from the pit under conductor Patrick Summers. It sounded like there was never a rehearsal. The brass bleated where they should have blared, winds came in late, and the immense sweeping waves of sound which should have filled the house came across as mere ripples. While this disappointment was taking place, Senta, played by Lise Lindstrom in her company debut, stood atop a house, gazing at a portrait of the Dutchman's eyes while a stormy sea was projected behind her. The sea turned to a large close-up of the Dutchman's closed eyes, and the effect was kind of disgusting, akin to looking at a poorly executed knock-off of a Chuck Close self-portrait that turns a lurid blood-red like something out of a Dario Argento movie. Wrongly, the impression it made is that Senta, in her demure Laura Ingalls Wilder dress, was a naive character out of a Bronte  novel (either sister will do), instead of a woman whose strange inner demons manifest themselves in obsessions with morbid legends. It's a very long eleven or twelve minutes with no payoff, unless you have a fetish for cinematic storm scenes or are a fan of V.C. Andrews.

Adler Fellow A. J. Gleukert, as the Steersman, sang his ditty of desire at the beginning of Act 1 extremely well- his voice was clear if not particularly big enough for the house, and though his diction wasn't precise (a problem with most of the cast for most of the night), his tone hit the right spot. Kristinn Sigmundsson's Daland bothered me the entire the evening, not because of his singing, which was fine, but there was an eagerness in his performance that made Daland, who is not a sympathetic father-figure type even in the most nuanced portrayals, flat-out loathsome, with an avarice that bordered on parodying a certain kind of stereotype one really doesn't want to bring up when discussing Wagner. Never mind that the character is supposed to be Norwegian.

Things got worse when the Dutchman wandered onstage looking like he somehow ended up here instead of an Iron Maiden concert. With his long, shiny black hair pulled into a ponytail, matching black goatee, and sleeveless black tee shirt revealing his well-honed biceps and apparently shaved armpits, topped off with a gold chain last seen when it was stolen from a B-boy back in 1983, Greer Grimsley looked absurdly out of place. Thankfully he can sing the part, not that it really helped all that much because soon he would be sporting a long, slender-fitting, black trench coat, making him look like Rasputin at a Halloween party, but for a while the orchestra gelled a bit as he sang his extended tale of woe. Grimsly was in good voice, and in any other production would probably be well worth seeing in the role, which has long been part of his repertoire.  Things finally got good when a huge trapdoor rose to reveal the interior  the Dutchman's ship, filled with that same lurid red light which would return again and again, but here it cast a creepy glow on skeletons nesting in hammocks of cobwebs- perhaps too reminiscent of Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean ride, but fun nonetheless. It wouldn't re-appear, but that's because- well, I really don't know why- it reappeared in the Liege version. Daland happily pimps out his daughter in return for the Dutchman's gold, and then we have intermission.

That's right. Intermission. Never mind that there isn't supposed to be an intermission in this opera. Never mind that an intermission turns what is usually a tad long, but fairly streamlined night at the opera into a three hour slog. Go get a drink. You probably want one by now.

Picking up with the Spinning Scene, which is now the Sweeping Scene (if part of the concept was ripe for replacement this was it), the bright gaiety of the music and the excellent, robust singing from the women of the chorus couldn't rise above the mundane approach to the staging. To have the women at spinning wheels isn't a necessity- Nikolaus Lehnhoff's production seen here in 2004 (which I loved though most didn't), is a good example of how this can be effectively rendered without being literal, but it should be a visually engaging moment as it is undeniably a high point of the opera. However, here it felt rote and flat. Lindstrom's first big moment, Senta's aria about the legend of the Dutchman, followed, and curiously she sang the first two syllables of each line on top of each other- it was a jarring effect each time she did it, and her high notes pierced at times though she held the long lines well. The aria lacked a sense of foreboding, and Lindstrom failed to convey much about who Senta is and what drives her obsession with the Dutchman.

Her duet with the Grimsley, his face now powdered to vampiric white, created no heat as both singers more often than not stood singing to the audience instead of each other, while Grimsley making the same sweeping arm gestures repeatedly, reminding me of a quote I recently read by a director (his name escapes me) who said he has banned any sort of gestures that suggest the tenor would like to sell the members of the audience a lovely cupcake from this beautiful display case, or something to that effect. Sadly, there was no help to be had from the pit, and even had there been, a volcano of oceanic waves spews behind the singers during the beginning of the scene to an extent that becomes a punishment rather than an enhancement.

Had Summers been able to bring out the music's excitement the problems on the stage might have been less troublesome, or at least satisfyingly mitigated. But as I mentioned yesterday, the music carried an oddly Italianate tone to a distracting degree for much of the night, causing me to look online to see if this was the first time Summers has conducted Wagner. It isn't, but if it had been I would not have been at all surprised. The music during the first half of the duet scene sounded more like Verdi than Wagner, and there's a point somewhere in here when a sail appears onstage, and it's supposed to be moving in the breeze I guess, but what it looked like to me was the front of a satin thong, hung upside-down to dry. It was very distracting, especially because the projections behind it now looked like maggot-infested, rotting cherries.

After Erik (capably sung by Ian Storey, who is wasted in the overall scheme of things) mucks things up for Senta, causing the Dutchman to reject her, departing once again to the sea, what follows is accurate to the story, but again, in a change from the Liege production which should have been left alone, the execution is way too reminiscent of Tosca to the point that it felt like a lazy choice. However, this laziness was quickly outshone by an extremely silly, vapid projection which brought it all to a close, and looked lifted straight from a 1980's Hallmark Cards commercial.