Customer Reviews

Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Here is the perfect answer to the Beckmessers who keep saying that no Wagner recording of today can match the historical recordings of the 50's and the 60's. For this may, in fact, be the best Fliegende Holländer ever. Well... of course, as far as vocal power and musical intelligence are concerned, Weikl can't rival the supreme Hotter - or even the brutish London -. But still, his presence is real, and he uses the occasional weaknesses of his ageing voice to compose a deep and haunted and attaching character. As for Sotin, who can be a most routine-minded singer if badly conducted, he will seem rather transfigured to those who have seen him in Bayreuth, as he takes full advantage of his still very beautiful voice to explore all the aspects of Daland's character. But the true marvels of this album lie elsewhere. The first jewel is undoubtedly Domingo's performance, which simply eclipses all the Eriks of the whole discography : the incredible beauty, the unimaginable warmth and the baffling youth of the voice, along with the incandescence of the incarnation alone would make this album worth buying. But they are more than matched by a young Studer at her best, in what may be her best recorded opera performance. One doesn't know what to praise most : the purity, the power and the magnificence of the voice, the extreme commitment of the artist (who shows once more that, though limited as an actress on stage, she can convey an immense range of emotions with her only voice) or her capacity to impose, with her own, specific abilities, a completely new vision of Senta's character - a sort of child-woman, lost in her dreams but with an incredibly strong personality -. But all of that would certainly not have been possible without the iron hand of a fantastic project manager. Imposing a lightning tension from the very beginning of the Overture, Maestro Sinopoli never releases his grip until the very end of the opera, and manages to keep the listener's full attention to the drama from the very first note to the very last, thus delivering an amazing lesson of how young Wagner should be conducted - somewhere between Dorati's italianism end Klemperer's romantism, but with more dramatic sense than the first, and less German heaviness than the second -. So... good news : for once, you won't have to make do with the cracklings of a live recording from 40 years ago to enjoy a Wagner opera at its best !

The Flying Dutchman has always been a conductor's opera. The orchestral writing is stormy and dramatic, the overture a great showpiece, the third act full of ensemble work for the chorus. Sinopoli masters all these aspects of the opera and is aided by wonderful, natural recorded sound.

His cast includes a great lyrical Senta in Cheryl Studer and stellar casting in Domingo as the hapless lover Eric. Everyone in fact is so good that this would be a unsurpassed modern Dutchman if it weren't for Weikl in the lead role. Germany ra out of first-rate Wagner baritones for a while, and Weikl filled the void as best he could. He has a good solid voice but a stolid sense of characerization--his cursed sea captain doesn't resonate with suffering or mythical loneliness. But in his middle-of-the-road way Weikl is far from being bad, and all around him you get an absolutely riveting rpoduction.

Sinopoli's rendition of Wagner's first successful opera, Der Fliegende Hollander, is something that (almost) everyone should own. The orchestral feeling of the stormy sea is both enchanting and furious at the same time. Cheryl Studer is magnificient when singing Senta's Ballad, and Placido Domingo does what he does best as Erik. The choir and the orchestra are in top form and the fast tempi Sinopoli chooses is well done and exhilarating.

I don't know about the other two reviewers that gave this CD one and two stars out of five, but this Hollander is here to stay. And stay away from James Levine's rendition; it's so slow that you'll fall asleep right after the Overture.

It took me several listenings to warm up to Sinopoli's DG Holländer. What was clear from the first listen was the high quality of the forces at his disposal. The orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin plays magnificently, I won't say it is the best played because there is no such thing, but it is one of the finest performances on record of this opera. The chorus is every bit the equal of the Bayreuth Festival Chorus but does not have the advantage of that spectacular and unique acoustic. Sinopoli conducts this work beautifully, full of drive without being bombastic and delicately subtle when called for. The problem with this recording, for me, are some of the singers. Weikl, Studer and Sotin are three of my favorite singers from that era when I was a young collector of Wagner operas, and I've always loved Domingo in Verdi but am less convinced of his Wagner performances where his German always sounds slightly mush-mouthed and slurry, though gorgeously sung. His Erik is very much an example his sounding more Tyrrhenian than Baltic. But it's a finely sung performance nonetheless and his rendition of the famous Cavantina is one of the best on record because he understands that sort of thing better than most Germanic heldentenors who couldn't do decent bel canto to save their lives.

The good news is that Hans Sotin still sings beautifully and is fully involved dramatically, an excellent Daland. Peter Seiffert is an outstanding Steersman and I often found myself wishing he had been cast as Erik. Cheryl Studer's Senta is mostly quite fine but the fast vibrato in her voice combined with the occasional rolling swell can become tiresome, but she is fully involved dramatically and, like Weikl's Dutchman, is fully alive to the drama of the text and conveys it vividly. Not, then, the best Senta I've heard on record; surprisingly I like Behrens, a variable singer, for Dohnanyi, much more, and there was no one quite like Rysanek if you can find a pirate recording of her from Bayreuth in her early career, or Silja with Sawallisch in a live performance from Bayreuth from the heyday of the late 60s.

The weakest singer in the cast is, unfortunately, the Dutchman himself, Bernd Weikl. He was a great lyric baritone in his prime in the 70s and 80s, venturing into the less stentorian Wagnerian roles like Kurwenal, Amfortas and so on. But the role of the Dutchman is the forerunner to Wotan, and Weikl, I don't think, could not have generated the vocal power needed to convey Wotan in Walküre or the Wanderer in Siegfried, though, like Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, he might have made a very good Rheingold Wotan.

The Dutchman became one of Weikl's mainstay parts in the late days of his career and, I'm afraid, it finished him off, but what a way to go, I suppose. If he had been recorded in this role 5 years earlier than this recording was made he might have sounded less threadbare when singing loud in his top register. But that strain is not entirely inappropriate to this cursed character who is, after all, a spectre of a once flesh and blood man. And Weikl, having been a psychology student in his youth, goes very deeply into the psyche of the Dutchman, more deeply than, say, James Morris, whose singing is much more suited to this part but rarely delves below the surface of the personality he's trying to bring to life.

So Weikl is not a fatal liability by any means. The innate beauty of his voice, like Sotin's, is still in full evidence in the quieter passages though he does not sound like a young lover or knight in shining armor.

The only minor criticism of this recording is that it sounds too careful sometimes. In the love duet, for instance, Studer and Weikl sing beautifully but also too correctly, if that can be a complaint. There is no spontaneity that you will hear from a live performance, as with Anja Silja and Fritz Uhl for Sawallisch or even Dunja Vejzovic and Peter Hofmann on Karajan's much over-maligned studio recording.

So I give this finely engineered recording (not the usual DG glassiness from that era) a solid four star rating. But Dohnanyi's recording on Decca, with the grossly under-rated Robert Hale and a surprisingly excellent Hildegard Behrens and a marginally finer supporting cast, is still the best modern (1980s to now) recording of this evergreen opera. Barenboim's Holländer with the excellent Falk Struckmann, is shot down by the horrible Senta of Jane Eaglen who sounds like a tubby matron with covered singing on top and a woofy bottom. The supporting cast is variable as well. The worst of Barenboim's otherwise admirable cycle of Wagner recordings, even worse than his recording of Tannhäuser which is, again, ruined by Jane Eaglen's presence as a mother superior type Elisabeth and Waltraud Meier's acidic Venus.

For a great, an immortal, recording of Holländer you will have to turn back the hands of time to the late 60s and buy the Klemperer studio recording with Theo Adam and Anja Silja or, better still, the Sawallisch live recording with Silja and Franz Crass. Neither Adam or Crass are vocally ideal Holländers though both are excellent, better than Weikl. For that you'll have to go further back in time to 1944 and the young, magnificent Hans Hotter with Clemens Krauss in Munich with a decent, if matronly, Viorica Ursuleac as Senta, in good-enough mono sound. Once you have adjusted your ears to the limitations of the off-air monophonic sound the drama will pop out at you like the Alien and grip you from start to finish.
If you need better sound then Keilberth's set from Bayreuth in 1956 is the one to get, with the other great Holländer of the ages, Hermann Uhde, and another slightly matronly Senta in Astrid Varnay.

Holländer is a notoriously tricky opera to cast and few, if any, recordings will provide total satisfaction in that department. I'd say stick with Dohnanyi for surefire satisfaction in the vocal department and utter joy in Dohnanyi's conducting and the playing of the Vienna Philharmonic and the chorus of the Vienna State Opera.

This is a wonderful record which i enjoy more and more. The conductor and the singers are all first rate. But especially Cheryl Studer sings the most beautiful of all Senta's on disc. She really sounds girlish and fresh, no problems for the voice at this date of recording! The most other Sentas on record sound also beautiful but not young enough. The Technics are also without fault however at Deutsche Grammophon. My recommendation!

What a truly superb and intensely passionate performance this is. I have seldom heard a chorus and orchestra perform with such precision,drive and clarity. The ensembles in particular, were the most impressive, obviously due to the impecable leadership and commitment of Maestro Sinopoli. The opening started with a line and tension that held me captive throughout the 3 Act masterpiece until the very last note. All credit for the success of this recording must go to Maestro Sinopoli for whom I have developed a renewed admiration and respect. Most definitely one of the best Wagner recordings, ever !!

Really, I fail to see what the fuss is about regarding this recording of Dutchman. Studer has such a flutter in her voice especially when she really has to sing, and that's many times! She is no match for Voigt and even Behrens. Weikl fails to meet Morris in terms of vocal intensity and insight, although he is a wonderful singer. Domingo.....no comment - prefer Heppner! Sinopoli is the opera's saving grace as far as tempi and orchestra control. Chorus is great!

The only reason I can see for anyone to listen to, let alone own, this vastly inferior performance of "Dutchman" is the fact that the best digital stereo version seems to be unavailable. That was the incredible 1981 (or '82) live performance featuring Lisbeth Balslev (who was far better than Studer), Robert Schunk (who could outsing Domingo on his best day), Matti Salminen as Daland, and Simon Estes as the Dutchman. Yes, Estes took most of his opening monologue to warm up, but once he did he was magnificent, with the power of a Schorr and the ringing resonance of Lawrence Tibbett. And Woldeman Nelsson's conducting was nothing short of spectacular. In fact, I have this performance 2 ways, on CD and video, and I love them both.

Sinopoli - spare me.