Customer Reviews

Wagner: Der Fliegende Hollander [Complete Opera]

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This new release of Wagner's early success is sorely let down by some of the singers. Jane Eaglen is extremely disappointing as Senta. She sings with little or no imagination (fatal for the role of Senta). She is often unsteady and tentative in her high register while her lowest notes lack resonance. Struckmann is a smooth-sounding but too weakly characterised Dutchman. Holl lacks to strength of tone of Daland and Seiffert is just a mediocre Erik.

Barenboim and the orchestra, on the other hand, give a masterful performance. Indeed, I have nothing to complain about the orchestral playing as well as the interpretation, which are extremely fine. But it's so unfortunate that the recording company has failed to find more suitable singers to match such a fine achievement.

A great pity indeed.

Der Fliegende Hollander is one of my favorite operas. I bought this version having just heard (August, 2007) Jane Eaglen sing the role at the Seattle Opera. She was simply fantastic. I also liked her on Barenboim's Tannhauser recording, made just before this one. Unfortunately this recording doesn't work, for a number of reasons.
First of all is the conductor. Barenboim's tempi are generally on the slow side. While I personally prefer the more forceful versions of conductors like Keilberth and Haitink, the slower tempi work when there is still a sense of power and momentum, as in the versions by Klemperer and Furtwangler. But here there is no rythmic drive to this production--the tempi seem to vary arbitrarily for unexplained reasons and there are odd silences. While the silences in music can be just as effective as the sound, if overdone one tends to wonder if the stereo has suddenly gone off. Barenboim's dynamics also seem to vary for inexplicable reasons--perhaps to wake up the nodding listener. Periods of almost inaudibility will be followed by a blast of sound followed by another period of whisper-like quiet.
Then there are the soloists. Falk Struckmann isn't bad, just not remarkable. His is more the pensive and introspective Dutchman, rather than one of menace and power. You want to give him a cup of tea and tell him to buck up.
Jane Eaglen is simply not in good voice. Her top notes are thin and forced and the warm sumptuous tone that filled the Seattle opera hall and thrilled the audience last month is rarely in evidence. Her duet with her Seattle Dutchman (Greer Grimsley) had the audience on the edge of their seats. Her duet with Struckmann on this album is merely adequate.
And even luxury casting in the small roles doesn't help here. Dame Felicity Palmer, ordinarily a great mezzo-soprano, sounds like a second-rate stand-in. Robert Holl's Daland sounds detached and flat in affect, like he's simultaneously trying to figure out his income tax. Rolando Villazon is the Helmsman, and his singing is lovely in tone, but bizarre in interpretation. At moments he's practically crooning, and he takes such liberties with the tempo that you expect him to be leaning against a piano in a dimly lit cocktail bar. And there are more odd long pauses between phrases, as if he forgot the words. I can only assume he was doing this on the instructions of the conductor.
The best performance is by Peter Seiffert in the role of the hapless Erik. Seiffert sings with skill and drama, and conveys Erik's feelings of frustration and helplessness in the face of Senta's obsession with the Dutchman.
The chorus is fine although unremarkable. The sound is excellent.
Fans of the opera all have their particular favorite recording. Mine is the Klemperer, with Theo Adam and Anja Silja, followed a close second by the Keilberth, with Hermann Uhde and Astrid Varnay. Penguin's Opera Guide considers the Haitink, with George London and Leonie Rysanek as one of the finest recordings of any opera. There really are no BAD recordings, but unfortunately this one comes in near or at the bottom of the list.

I'm not usually so harsh about singers but Jane Eaglen ruins this recording, as she did Barenboim's Tannhäuser. But unlike the Tannhäuser set the ruination of this Holländer set is helped along by most of the rest of this woefully miscast cast.

Barenboim's conducting is well below par as well; lifeless and turgid, almost as horrible as James Levine was for his Sony set, which has a much better cast, by the way.

Falk Struckmann is an excellent Dutchman though he's not in best voice here, a bit wobbly but nothing terribly annoying. I expect he was infected by the deflating atmosphere of the entire project. The best singing is from Felicity Palmer, as MARY, the tiny subsidiary role of Senta's nurse (who one assumes is an orphan). It's a very dark day when the best singing in a very expensive recording of Holländer comes from the Mary.

Jane Eaglen's matronly, dull and covered-sounding singing is partnered by the woolly and dull Robert Holl as her daddy, Daland. The 'dulth' is over-spiced with two very Latinate tenors who sound like they've drifted ashore from a shipwreck in the Mediterranean. There was absolutely no reason at all to call in Plácido Domingo to sing Erik, aside from the fact that this set was clearly cast as an all-star extravaganza, gone terribly wrong as it turns out. Domingo sounds like he's singing in a Spanish tavern deep in the bowels of Sevilia. The role of Daland's boy, the steersman, features the recording debut of the ill-fated Rolando Villazon. Again, why? He's completely out of place in the North Sea and sounds ridiculous.

Peter Seiffert could easily have been called in for Erik and there are plenty of excellent light tenors around Germany for the smaller role of the Steersman. And why didn't Barenboim use his influence to put the nix on Eaglen and hire the wonderful Anne Schwanewilms who sang the role in the production at the Berlin State Opera at the time of these recording sessions?
And surely Matti Salminen could have been hired for Daland, anyone other than the decrepit Holl.

All in all a hugely disappointing set that I was very much looking forward to. Big names alone are never the answer to achieving fine artistic quality. This set is a real floater that should be avoided at all costs.

As I write this, none of the other reviewers did comment on the fact that this is a recording of the original version of Holländer. The so called "redemption motive" is missing in the end of the overture as well as in the very end of the opera. This is OK, since the original version is still the preferred one at Bayreuth. But this should have been made clear in the product description. I was expecting the revised version.

Recently, I had a chance to hear Barenboim's "Fliegende Hollander". I was utterly disappointed. The orchestra & choir were good and the conducting was spot on, but the vocal cast is devastatingly flawed. Jane Eaglen sounds too heavy as Senta, and Felicity Palmer didn't sound too great as Mary, Senta's nurse. Falk Struckmann as the Dutchman tries very hard, but fails when he's supposed to be lyrical during his arias. I was, however, impressed by the singings of Holl and Sieffert.

In conclusion, I think you should avoid this rendition of Wagner's first successful opera. And avoid James Levine's rendition, too. Go for the Sinopoli, Solti, or Klemperer recordings.

This boxed set is terrific. Barenboim has the Staatskapelle Berlin sounding like an orchestra possessed--you'll never hear a better rendition of the overture. The singers are all in fine form.

My sole complaint--and its a big one--is that my boxed set was seriously crushed before it ever left amazon's warehouse. The back part of the jewel case was seriously crushed. Really lousy customer service, if you ask me. But the discs were playable, so I didn't return it.

After hearing Barenboim's marvelous recording of Tannhauser, I decided to get this Flying Dutchman. It is a great disappointment. I am no expert on opera and am not able to write with sufficient clarity on all the deficiencies, but one thing really stood out: Jane Eaglen's Senta. The quality of her voice really does not suit the youthful Senta. On the hight notes she sounds more like screeching rather than singing. I don't understand how someone who sounds just fine and even great on Tannhauser can sound so horrible here.