The fiendishly attractive Dutchman, black coat glistening with tiny ice crystals, long hair down past his shoulders, emerged from the shadows at front stage right in Leeds’ Victorian Town Hall, his first appearance in Act I. Low horn calls and writhing chromatic phrases from the strings brought us to his opening monologue, and by the time he reached “Niemals der Tod!” (“Death never comes!”) he was absolutely stunning and the hairs were rising on the back of my neck at least. It was a sign that this production of a relatively early music drama was going to be exciting, and that it would build well on Opera North’s recent great achievement, all four parts of Der Ring des Nibelungen in successive years.
The principals are all from a stable set up at the beginning of the Ring project in 2011 – Béla Perencz, playing the doomed Dutchman, was an impressive Wotan in Die Walküre three years ago – and the Orchestra of Opera North is now appropriately seasoned, accustomed to the strictures and demands of the great composer. In fact, there is no doubt that Musical Director Richard Farnes can be described as one of the country’s leading Wagnerians, having established a tradition of excellence by working his personal magic on the considerable expertise available to him. In this production, as in previous ones, Farnes was never indulgent, never yielded to temptation, so every climactic fortissimo was carefully calculated, and there was just the right kind of narrative intensity as the music pulsed steadily like blood in a healthy body through each vein, artery and capillary.
Arterial red was a dominant colour for Peter Mumford’s concert staging, streaming down a huge sail of a screen on which was projected the predictable dark silhouettes of rigging and masts, together with white hands which might belong to the drowned (possibly a few too many of those) and close-ups of mesmerizing eyes which tended to become empty skull sockets. The narrow strip of performance space in front of the band was intelligently used, and the chorus, denied any chance of displaying its agility, was arranged in rows, women at the front, men at the back. It gave us some of the most memorable moments of the evening (Chorus Master Martin Wettges): the women began Act II – incidentally all the acts were run together, with no interval – with great panache and perfectly-enunciated words, their spinning wheels making a few shadows on screen as they gave us “Summ und Brumm, du gutes Rädchen” (“Hum and Buzz, good wheel”), and the men were equally effective, especially with a remarkably stirring “Steuermann, lass die Wacht!” (“Helmsman, leave the watch!”) at the start of Act III.