Would that this beautifully played and conceived Dutchman were nearly as well sung! Daniel Barenboim opts for quick tempos throughout but never holds back on the drama. (His timings are almost exactly the same as Sinopoli’s, and 15 minutes faster than Klemperer’s on Living Stage, a live performance from London in 1968 in great sound and even better than his EMI recording.) The abrupt changes in mood in this work are beautifully handled, and the superb recording has made it easy for us to bask in some early-Wagner details that often get lost. I don’t recall ever hearing the wonderful dancing trumpet figures near the very end of the Norwegians’ rowdy Act 3 chorus (right before the ghost-crew’s wind-swept response) so clearly–it’s nice to hear Wagner’s inner workings occasionally. And the transition from the Dutchman’s darkness to the duet with Daland is just another example of Barenboim’s welcome theatricality. His orchestra and chorus respond magnificently throughout.
Falk Struckmann’s Dutchman gets better as the opera goes on. He’s always dramatically on top of this remarkably overwrought yet resigned character, but his voice sounds like a decidedly second-rate instrument until the third act. He may be doing this on purpose, but I doubt it; it’s a lack of quality and focus I’m picking up, not dramatic thrust. And Jane Eaglen is bland. The sound is “prettier” than most Sentas (Silja, Rysanek), but nothing sounds urgent and the singing itself is not first rate. She flats on a top note during the second-act duet and elsewhere the voice all-too-often loses its center. If Senta doesn’t carry us through the opera on her obsession, what will?
Peter Seiffert’s Erik is urgent and tonally handsome, and Robert Holl’s Daland is right-on but dry sounding and seriously lacking if you compare him with Talvela or Sotin. Felicity Palmer makes us pay attention to Mary, and the Steersman–always beautifully cast on recordings–introduces a new gorgeous-voiced tenor, Rolando Villazon. Barenboim uses the Dresden version, without the “transfiguration” music at the end. In brief, despite gorgeous orchestral playing and choral singing, this Dutchman need not wander into your collection.
