VERSAILLES, France \u2014 For once \u201cThe Flying Dutchman\u201d was programmed the way Wagner conceived it: on a bill with something else. The opera was devised as a curtain raiser to a ballet at the Paris Op\u00e9ra, but Wagner never got the hoped-for commission and sold his scenario to the theater for 500 francs. Enter Pierre-Louis Dietsch, an otherwise forgotten French composer whose superior connections with the Op\u00e9ra management \u2014 he was chorus master there \u2014 won him the job. In November 1842, two months before \u201cThe Flying Dutchman\u201d finally premiered in Dresden, \u201cLe Vaisseau Fant\u00f4me\u201d (The Phantom Ship) took to the stage of the Op\u00e9ra in an evening that also included ballet.<\/p>\n
The conductor Marc Minkowski, apparently regarding each opera as a work in search of a companion, had the inspired idea to pair the two in concert performances with his period-instrument orchestra Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble at Op\u00e9ra Royal in the Ch\u00e2teau de Versailles. The Wagner-sized evening lasted nearly five hours, including a 40-minute refreshment break. For the record, Dietsch\u2019s opera was the shorter by about 20 minutes.<\/p>\n
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In selling his scenario Wagner struck a handsome deal for himself, given that his opera was allowed to be produced elsewhere and the Dutchman legend had already been treated by numerous writers, including Heinrich Heine and Sir Walter Scott. In broad outline, Dietsch\u2019s opera corresponds to Wagner\u2019s: A young woman, urged on by her financially-motivated father, forsakes her local lover and follows her passion for a ship\u2019s captain condemned to traverse the seas in perpetuity. Her self-sacrificial death releases him from his fate, and the two are united in death, as an apotheosis in the heavens reveals.<\/p>\n
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But \u201cVaisseau Fant\u00f4me\u201d also draws on other sources. Like \u201cDutchman\u201d it has a tenor named Eric, but the young woman Minna (no relation to Wagner\u2019s then wife) is initially in love with Magnus (a sailor not a hunter), whose father served as pilot for the condemned captain, known as Tro\u00efl, and, following a dispute, was thrown overboard by the latter, but not before inflicting on Tro\u00efl\u2019s hand a wound that will not heal (shades of \u201cParsifal\u201d). Rejected by Minna, Magnus enters a monastery and, as fate would have it, presides in his priestly capacity at the wedding of Minna and Tro\u00efl (whose identity is known only by Minna). As rings are exchanged, Magnus spots the wound, general uproar ensues and Minna throws herself into the sea.<\/p>\n
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It makes you appreciate Wagner\u2019s streamlined plot, which allows all the essential dramatic points to be made without the clutter about the pilot and the wounded hand. Musically, the gulf between the operas is even greater, but Dietsch\u2019s opera has its rewards, including several melodically appealing, dramatically apt numbers. Berlioz found the work excessively solemn, but at least Dietsch made an effort to characterize Tro\u00efl as someone out of the ordinary. Formally conventional, most musical numbers conclude with a cabaletta or similar quick movement. Dietsch\u2019s music, while generic, is pleasant to hear.<\/p>\n
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Yet with the first turbulent bars of the \u201cDutchman\u201d overture, it was as if Dietsch\u2019s well-crafted schooner of an opera were swamped in the wake of a vast ocean liner. Instantaneously, you sensed the depth of Wagner\u2019s dramatic vision and the superior musical vocabulary that transformed that vision into reality. Dietsch\u2019s routine approach to form heightened awareness that the same structural patterns were at work in \u201cDutchman,\u201d yet in a more flexible, less doctrinaire way. And, yes, there was a sense of organic unfolding absent from \u201cVaisseau Fant\u00f4me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Mr. Minkowski performed \u201cDutchman\u201d in the earliest extant version, which differs only in a few musical details from what we usually hear, but the setting is Scotland (Wagner shifted it to Norway in a late-hour decision during rehearsals for the premiere); accordingly, the names of certain characters are different. Both casts were strong, that for \u201cVaisseau Fant\u00f4me\u201d consisting of voices of a more lyrical type than were heard in \u201cDutchman,\u201d which largely conformed to today\u2019s Wagnerian norm.<\/p>\n
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Sally Matthews\u2019s velvety soprano and polished delivery brought Minna to life, not least in her big solo scene that began with a prayer for Tro\u00efl and concluded, following news of her father Barlow\u2019s safe return from the sea, with a bouncy cabaletta. The soprano Ingela Brimberg negotiated Senta\u2019s treacherous Ballad excitingly and endowed the emotionally charged heroine with generous, penetrating, if occasionally raw sounding, tone. As Barlow and as Donald (otherwise known as Daland) in \u201cDutchman,\u201d the basses Ugo Rabec and Mika Kares each sang with good-natured confidence, the latter with somewhat more tonal weight.<\/p>\n
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The baritone Russell Braun sang Tro\u00efl with vocal warmth, nuanced phrasing and an air of mystery. In a gripping portrayal, Vincent Le Texier, also a baritone, plumbed the depth of the Dutchman\u2019s anguish and sang with haunting, richly resonant tone. Appearing in both operas, the sweet-voiced tenor Bernard Richter made a sympathetic figure of Magnus and sang Wagner\u2019s Steersman with uncommon beauty of sound. As Wagner\u2019s Georg (later known as Erik) Eric Cutler sang well but needed more seasoning in the role; he also sang ably as Dietsch\u2019s Eric.<\/p>\n
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Drawing on his expertise in French opera, Mr. Minkowski proved a strong advocate for \u201cVaisseau Fant\u00f4me,\u201d but when the time came seemed eager to plunge into the Wagner. He led an exhilarating performance of the latter that put more emphasis on dramatic sweep than fineness of detail. The orchestra\u2019s period instruments, while not flawless, were an asset in both operas but were especially arresting in the Wagner, with the rather abrasive string sound proving especially stimulating. Like \u201cDutchman,\u201d \u201cVaisseau Fant\u00f4me\u201d has significant choral content, including a choral confrontation in which Tro\u00efl\u2019s crew scares off the locals. The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir performed excellently.<\/p>\n
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This was a truly meaningful way to observe the Wagner bicentennial. Hearing Dietsch\u2019s opera gave a vivid picture of the Parisian milieu that \u201cDutchman\u201d grew out of, allowing one to experience Wagner\u2019s genius from a new perspective. We are unlikely to hear \u201cVaisseau Fant\u00f4me\u201d often, but it lives on in one respect. In France, Wagner\u2019s opera is known not, as in English, by a title literally translated from \u201cDer Fliegende Holl\u00e4nder,\u201d but as \u201cLe Vaisseau Fant\u00f4me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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