A Bold Re-imagining

MIKE WHEELER finds primeval turbulence in Opera North's production of Wagner's 'The Flying Dutchman'

It was Opera North's Theatre of Sanctuary designation that provided Annabel Arden's new production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman with its starting-point: the Dutchman and his crew were refugees - Theatre Royal, Nottingham, UK, 22 March 2025. Solitary figures crossed the stage at the start of each act, and we heard the recorded voices of real asylum-seekers describing their experiences. The figure at the start of Act II was followed on stage by a young woman who turned out to be Senta, a clue to what happens later.

Visually, the stage was dominated by a video of sea and sky as mirror-images - waves became clouds became waves, moving in opposite directions to each other - emblematic, perhaps, of the Dutchman's fate as an endless loop, without resolution. Act I takes place in the Home Office. Daland is Home Secretary, with his crew of civil servants, and ever-changing digital data projected on to various pieces of the set suggesting a different kind of storm.

At the start of Act II, the girls are not spinning, but sorting through piles of donated clothes, toys, etc.

While some aspects of the production did not seem, at first, to gell, musically it was everything you could have wished for, with Opera North's Music Director Garry Walker running, if you'll pardon the expression, a tight ship. Principals, chorus and orchestra - everyone was on cracking form. Maybe the overture was not as wind-swept as some, but it's the role of an overture to set the scene, not tell the whole story, and there was plenty of primeval turbulence to come. The Act III storm was particularly thrilling, and the way tension was held over various pauses in the action ensured there was no slack in the rigging.

Robert Hayward brought a seedy world-weariness to his tormented Dutchman. His Act I monologue told us all we needed to know about the huge weight on his shoulders. Canadian soprano Layla Claire will be a great asset to the company whenever she can be persuaded back. Playing Senta like a teenager with a crush on her favourite rock star, she even dressed like the Dutchman, in long grey coat and wide-brimmed hat. Every top note was securely in place, and her account of the Act II Ballad was riveting.

Clive Bayley's Daland was a slick operator, and in his Act I duet with the Dutchman you were never quite sure who was wheedling whom.

Edgaras Montvidas brought his fine heldentenor voice to the doubled roles of a one-of-the-lads Steersman, and an Erik who projected more genuine anxiety and less strident hectoring than usual. Molly Barker's Mary was Daland's dependable secretary.

Molly Barker as Mary, Edgaras Montvidas as Erik/Steersman and Clive Bayley as Daland with members of the Chorus of Opera North in Opera North's production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman. Photo © 2025 James Glossop

The outcome on stage was no big romantic apotheosis. The Dutchman simply walked off, burdened by yet another disappointment, and Senta was given a box of donated clothing, tying in with her first appearance to suggest that she, too, was a refugee. Though the nature of her relationship with Daland was never defined, it was a bold re-imagining of Wagner's chosen myth.

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The background image on this page has been derived from Shipwreck (1856, pencil and gouache on paper) by Russian Romantic painter Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900).

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