Der Fliegende Holländer

by Richard Wagner

seen by live streaming from Covent Garden 24 February 2015

This is a revival of Tim Albery's 2009 production. It stars Bryn Terfel as the Dutchman, Adrianne Pieczonka as Senta, Peter Rose as Daland, Michael König as Erik, Ed Lyon as the Steersman, and Catherine Wyn-Rogers as Mary. The conductor is Andris Nelsons.

Bryn Terfel gives a compelling performance as the flying Dutchman, by turns weary, passionate, hopeful and despairing. His is a commanding presence on the large stage, with a set that tends to dwarf the characters in its great sweep of curved metal.

Adrianne Pieczonka is a warm Senta living in a world of her own, and genuinely puzzled to be called to account by the hapless Erik. It really does not seem to have occurred to her that she may have a conflict of loyalties until he reminds her of what he has taken to be her promises to him. Her impact in the second scene (here set in a clothing workshop with lots of sewing machines) is less striking than that of Anja Kampe, whose swooping attack on the descending notes of the Dutchman's ballad in the original production was utterly sensational.

The Mastersingers of Nuremberg

by Richard Wagner

seen on 14 February 2015

This production from English National Opera at the Coliseum was first presented by Welsh National Opera in 2010. Richard Jones has directed the transfer with a new cast including Iain Paterson as Hans Sachs, Gwyn Hughes Jones as Walther von Stolzing, Rachel Nicholls as Eva Pogner, and Andrew Shore as Sixtus Beckmesser. It is set notionally (but not entirely realistically - there are electric lights in the houses) in 1868, the year of the opera's premiere, rather than in the sixteenth century in which Hans Sachs lived.