OPERA: The Flying Dutchman, LA Opera

CAST

• The Dutchman

   Tómas Tómasson*

• Senta (March 9)

   Julie Makerov*

• Senta

   Elisabete Matos*

• Erik

   Corey Bix

• Erik (March 21)

   John Pickle*

• Daland

   James Creswell

• Steersman

   Matthew Plenk*

• Mary

   Ronnita Nicole Miller++

I don't know why audiences and critics are lukewarm about this L.A. Opera offering, but I"m not.  I thought it erotic and seductive, and the production is exquisite.

This vision of the Dutchman is cold and dark, modern. A beautiful scrim mural of a stormy sea opens the opera.  Lots of fog, blue and silver then brownish blue lighting effects, and silver gray costumes that sweep and immobilize the characters in the face of destiny.  The ship's ribs are cold steel.   The Dutchman appears at the back of the stage framed by a giant windmill/nuclear danger silhouette, and then steps through for a long slow walk to the front of the stage to face the coming events.

 His robes and hat reveal him to be the lonely traveler, perhaps the Man in the Long Black Cloak in Dylan's song.  He is a desperate and icy soul, yearning for  release, trapped by his defiance of the sea's power.  Is he somehow more than a devil's pawn?

The Flying Dutchman is a story of a sea captain whose vow to pass the Cape no matter the sea is damned by the Devil to sail the seas unless he can find a woman who will be true to him - the catch is that he has one day every seven years to do soThe modern parallel story is about women who accept the mythology of Cinderella, of submersion in cult, glamour, celebrity - whatever removes authenticity from their existence.

In some productions the maiden who frees the Dutchman jumps into the ocean, sacrificing herself to free the Dutchman's soul;  in others they rise up together at the finale.  In this version, she walks back upstage to disappear in the foggy gloom.  Her march to her death reverses the long downstage entrance made at the beginning of the opera by The Dutchman.

The Sunday performance was the first after an illness of the soprano, Elizabete Matos.  She sang credibly although to my ear, she shrilled and strained dreadfully as she sang the opera's last lines.  All others seemed quite good to me.  The opera orchestra played the exquisite music beautifully indeed, polishing the shining production to a fine luminosity.

The Spinning Room - the skirts of the maidens awaiting their sailor lovers were  visible steel hoops which shone  golden, suggesting their task and the volume and form of feminine power.