This will turn out to be my second of four trips to see San Francisco’s Flying Dutchman: one dress rehearsal, one regular season subscription, one as a result of exchanging my Dolores Claiborne ticket for something much more worthwhile, and one senior rush ticket. The sets are described in the report of the dress rehearsal.
Our cast:
The Dutchman: Greer Grimsley
Senta: Lise Lindstrom
Daland: Kristinn Sigmundsson
Erik: Ian Storey
The Steersman: A. J. Glueckert
Conductor: Patrick Summers
Director: Petrika Ionesco
This was the production that was beset by a number of problems, most notably the dismissal of the director a week prior to the dress rehearsal. General Director David Gockley told us at the dress rehearsal that we could expect to see the production fine-tuned as the run went on. There were probably some subtle differences between today’s performance and the dress rehearsal, but none were particularly noteworthy. We still had Daland’s ship backing into the fjord, the projections of astronomical photographs, half the women sweeping while the other half spun, etc.
Greer Grimsley sang well enough as the Dutchman, but wasn’t particularly remarkable. Lise Lindstrom’s Senta sounded a bit underpowered. My favorite of the principals was bass Kristinn Sigmundsson, the Icelandic biology teacher. A. J. Glueckert, as the Steersman, baffled me with his action of threatening the Dutchman with a pistol just as the Dutchman began to explain himself to Daland. Wonderful music, good enough singing, sort of cockeyed production ... not quite a beta.
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