The Flying Dutchman (dress rehearsal), San Francisco Opera, Oct. 19 2013

An invitation to the dress rehearsal of The Flying Dutchman was a benefit of my volunteering in an official capacity for the East Bay Chapter of the San Francisco Opera Guild. We were treated to a luncheon beforehand, complete with remarks by San Francisco Opera general director David Gockley. Gockley informed us that the production had been beset with a number of problems, and he had (finally) had to fire the director and set designer, Petrika Ionesco, who filled both roles. As near as I can tell, the production was getting to be just too weird. For example, the Dutchman was supposed to arrive in a rocket ship. This production was based on the production at Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège. To see that production’s staged overture, which takes place in a graveyard, see YouTube.

So we were wondering just what we were going to get. Three productions prior, in 1988, it was the Jean-Pierre Ponnelle production, famous for interpreting the story as the fantastic dream of the steersman. That staging was one of the most visually impressive that I have ever seen. Most notably, the arrival of the Dutchman’s ship was represented by the sudden turning-on of stage lights that illuminated the blood-red sails of the Dutchman’s ship, with dead bodies hanging from the cobweb-like rigging. Awe-inspiring! Then we got the no-ship production, where all we could see was a wharf and a long rope leading out of sight. And Senta had no picture of the Dutchman to concentrate on. Most recently, the ship returned, but just the outline of the ship: its ribs, and the lowermost deck of the ship, just above the keel.

This time, the audience found itself on the deck of a ship, complete with a hatch to below-decks and a structure at the back of the stage that included a large smokestack (?) and a balcony from which the helmsman could steer the ship. Projections  to the left, right, and back showed the ship entering a fjord with tall snowy peaks all around. The disconcerting thing was that the ship seemed to be backing into the fjord, with the helmsman facing opposite to the direction of motion.

A lot happened with these projections. In addition to the peaks surrounding the fjord, at various times throughout the opera we also saw astronomical photographs of the center of a spiral galaxy; just the closed eyes of a face, presumably the face of the Dutchman; and the surface of the open ocean. Only partially successful.

For the second act, the projection screens to the right and left were replaced by two-story, balcony-like structures. The only women “spinning” were on that upper balcony level, and they weren’t so much spinning as they were winding the spun yarn onto spindles. On the main floor, the other women were either mopping the floor, or dyeing large sheets of cloth, either bedsheets or sails. The hatch to below-decks was still present; it served as the place from which a large triangular sail could be raised, and projections on that sail accompanied Senta’s Ballad and the subsequent action of Act 2.

For the third act, the projection screens returned to the right and left; to the rear was the wall of a large brick building. For the finale, the brick wall went away, to be replaced by a projection screen; all of the screens showed the surface of the ocean, and Senta leaped to her death from the back end of the raked stage. Then the projections changed to the spiral galaxy, with two bright stars moving in to the center from the left and right, finally merging into one even brighter star.

This being a dress rehearsal, comments on the performance will have to wait until a regular subscription performance.