A woman in labour, a birth and a death launch this new production of Wagner’s first mature opera about the legendary Dutchman condemned to sail the seas until a wife can lift the curse that only permits him to make landfall once in every seven years. It’s a curious if strikingly effective visual counterpoint to the storm-tossed overture in which director Jack Furness shifts the work’s focus on to Senta. He provides her with a backstory built on the childhood trauma of seeing her mother die, a misfortune that triggers her subsequent obsessive behaviour first revealed when she runs around the stage as if attempting take flight from her troubling memories. It’s also a neat parallel to the Dutchman’s own cycle of lonely seafaring.By the opera’s closing scene Senta has become victim to her mental struggles and exits, like her mother before her, on a hospital trolley.
This imaginative take is all very plausible, but such psychological bookending highlights a certain emptiness between its framing. Once we’ve understood Senta’s painful childhood little else provides food for thought or catches the eye. True, ghostly women appear in Act One to allude to Senta’s precursors and their failed attempts to redeem the Dutchman. Elsewhere, there is little movement with the womenfolk during the sewing scene who sing behind a motionless and emotionally remote Senta lost in her own dreams. No floor pacing here that would have tied in with her earlier movement. And with so much running around during the overture a general stillness later is unduly emphasised, especially during the opening scenes involving a largely immobile Daland and Dutchman who, all too often, sing straight out to the audience with little sense of interaction between themselves.
In part, that’s the result of minimal direction and arguably, the consequence of an empty stage (albeit given an occasional enveloping sea fret) briefly bedecked with some searchlights, a sofa and a dozen or so chairs, all of which looked as if they could have been sourced from a car boot sale. Without a ship or even a sail in sight, this budget staging, while ideal for touring, could not be more economical, clearly impacted by cost-conscious decisions. Even Erin Steele’s impressionistic panel (possibly inspired by the Welsh artist Mary Lloyd Jones) has one searching in vain for any semblance of coastline.
For those new to Wagner’s Dutchman, one might have felt short-changed by this conceptual approach. But if Senta’s disappearance at the end removes the possibility of redemption for our hero, this production is well and truly redeemed by its musical qualities with some outstanding singing from a superb cast and thrilling playing from the WNO orchestra.
Chief amongst the vocal team is a well-projected Simon Bailey as the Dutchman, his bass-baritone possessing edge and warmth that draws our sympathy in a strong performance not lacking in authority, even if world weariness is rarely present. As his devoted Senta, a woman determined to save the Dutchman’s soul, Rachel Nicholls is at her most compelling in her Act Two Ballad. Her expressive range here embraces every vocal nuance from disembodied to clear-sighted resolution. Notwithstanding some occasional strident tone, hers is a masterclass of stage presence and technique, and impressing again in her big duet.
As the opportunistic sea captain Daland, all too keen to marry off his daughter in exchange for the riches in the ghost ship’s hold, James Cresswell has a voice of oceanic depth. No less persuasive are Tristan Llŷr Griffiths as an ardent steersman, and Leonardo Caimi as Senta’s frustrated suitor Erik. Despite his clarion tenor and passionate entreaties, it’s no great surprise Senta prefers the charismatic Dutchman to a man wearing a suit that could belong to a civil servant.
And then there’s the expanded WNO chorus. What a rousing sound they produce, not least in the Act Three knees up, though here I wasn’t entirely convinced by the joint carousing from both ships, closely followed by ‘apparitions’ of men who had just been singing. Could video projections been an alternative solution? However, what really set the seal on this performance was the conducting from Tomáš Hanus who generates playing of tremendous vigour and also dancing lightness, his pacing and attention to detail well worth catching on tour when the Dutchman sets ashore in Plymouth, Birmingham and Milton Keynes. Catch it while you can.
David Truslove
The Flying Dutchman
Music and libretto by Richard Wagner
Sung in German with English and Welsh surtitles
Cast and production staff:
The Dutchman – Simon Bailey; Senta – Rachel Nicholls; Daland – James Cresswell; Erik – Leonardo Caimi; Steersman – Tristan Llŷr Griffiths; Mary – Monica Sawa; Senta’s Mother – Rhiannon Llewellyn; Nurse – Stacey Wheeler; Maidens & Crew – Chorus of Welsh National Opera.
Director – Jack Furness; Designer – Elin Steele; Movement Director – Rebecca Meltzer; Lighting – Lizzie Powell; Orchestra of Welsh National Opera; Conductor – Tomáš Hanus
Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, 16 April 2026
Top image: Cast of The Flying Dutchman
All photos © Craig Fuller