Success!

The reviews are in: opening night of "Der fliegende Holländer" at Mobile Opera was a great success. It was also a historic event: the first Wagner opera and the first opera in German to be done in Mobile. Of course, I lack objectivity as I was intimately involved in the process, but I will say that I was very impressed with the entire production. Amanda Mace shone in her portrayal of Senta with gorgeous, consistent singing. Her voice just soars and fills the hall; Doug Nagel's Holländer was imposing, sung with riveting emotional commitment; John Pickle played the hapless Erik with a performance worthy of any opera house. Kay Walker Castaldo's direction made the story come to life in a sensible and touching manner. (We can be grateful that we are not subjected to the moronic eurotrash that one sees in many European houses these days.) But the most striking aspects of this production were Barry Steele's lighting and visual effects. It is not enough to call them projections; the images we saw were three-dimensional and they moved. At times it was like watching a movie. During the overture a life-size ship glides across the stage; in the opening storm we see rain, so realistic that you could see individual raindrops splat upon the ground. I expected a flood of water to cascade off the stage into the pit. During the transitional music to the second scene we fly across a rocky sea landscape and enter the window of a wooden building to find ourselves suddenly in a room of Daland's house. I don't know how many lighting designers are experimenting with this type of technology, but this might be the wave of the future. Who needs expensive, cumbersome scenery when you can project images that move? (There was one set piece, however, a moveable, multi-tiered platform that suggested different levels of the ship.)
In honor of the event I have composed two haiku. Here they are:

Dutchman comes to call;
Senta gaga over him.
Loud singing ensues.

Two acts follow first;
On and on and on it goes...
will it ever end?

All joking aside, I have come to love FH. It is Wagner's first true masterpiece. Despite being a transitional work, employing many operatic conventions of the time, it gives us a glimpse into the revolutionary style that was to evolve. FH is the first of the composer's operas that uses the Leitmotif.

Summ' und brumm'

We've been having staging rehearsals for only three days but I feel like I have been at it for a month. Last night we actually ran Act I. It went very well, without any major mishap. The men's chorus, though not large, sounds really good. They are in the opening scene, sailors aboard Daland's ship which has just landed on a steep, rocky shore. Soon thereafter the Ghost Ship appears and we meet the Dutchman. As the result of a curse he wanders the ocean and is only premitted to land once every seven years. And this is the day. Oh, boy! One imagines that he must be really horny. In the ensuing aria (the famous "Die Frist ist um") and the (really long) duet with Daland we learn that the Dutchman has a chest of great riches. He's willing to cash it in for the nearest babe. Anyone will do, apparently. Daland happens to have a daughter (Senta), a convenient coincidence for the unfolding of the plot, of course, and he has no compunctions about trading her in for the filthy lucre. The Dutchman's curse can only be lifted through the love of a woman, the redemption motif we find in many of Wagner's operas. Everyone is happy -- for the moment, anyway. The chorus, which has been backstage all this time and has read "War and Peace" from cover to cover in the interim, appears again to bring the act to a rousing close.
Today we will begin staging the second act in which we meet Senta and her maid Maria along with the chorus of village girls. They are in Daland's house, busily spinning away. This is the famous Spinning Chorus ("Summ' und brumm', du gutes Rädchen"), one of the highlights of the show. Daland appears and introduces the Dutchman. He and Senta hit it off right away. Senta actually has a boyfriend, the hapless Erik, but she dumps him in a flash. We suspect that at this point, after seven years at sea, the Dutchman would get engaged to the neighbor's goat, if it would get the curse lifted. The act concludes with a (long) duet and trio. The music is magnificent, but Wagner does take his sweet time.
There are usually two rehearsal sessions a day, afternoon and evening. Tomorrow there will also be a morning session which means that I will be playing all day. I am enjoying getting to know the other cast memebers. Soon we will have visited all the eateries in downtown Mobile.
The climate is much milder here, of course, though the South has also endured an unusually cold winter. The daytime temps are near 70. The Japanese magnolias, also known as tulip trees, are already in bloom. Downtown flower beds have been planted with colorful pansies. It's spring!