Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer

The Met's new production.

Returning to New York's Metropolitan Opera following the New Year's gala concert will be Evgeny Nikitin. Familiar from numerous Wagnerian productions, the Russian baritone last sang the role of the Dutchman at Saint Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre and will now replace Welsh singer Sir Bryn Terfel, who recently underwent surgery on his ankle, in the role of the accursed captain of a ship condemned to wander the oceans forever. The Russian conductor of the pro...duction is no less famous: Valery Gergiev, the musical director of Saint Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre. Directing will be François Girard. Also credited with the Oscar Award-winning film The Red Violin, his visionary 2013 Parsifal set the standard for staging Wagner at the Met. His concept is an encounter between reality and fiction, as he strived for total authenticity by analysing the areas of the Norwegian coast where Wagner wrote in his diary that he had experienced the terrifying gale at sea that proved to be the spark inspiring the opera. John Macfarlane's designs contribute a great deal to the sweeping energy of the production, transforming the stage of the Met into a tableau that almost seems to evoke an oil painting and gives an important role to the poetically depicted transcendental elements.
Making her Met début will be the extraordinarily talented German soprano Anja Kampe, as she portrays Senta, the ideal woman, whose self-sacrificing love redeems the Dutchman from his torments. In the role of her father, Daland, will be an outstanding German bass who has played the same character at Bayreuth: Franz-Josef Selig. Senta's discarded suitor, Erik, will be sung by Sergei Skorokhodov.

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