Wagner: Der Fliegende Holländer

Staatskapelle Berlin;
Konwitschny, Franz

94664

One of the greatest and most revolutionary composers of the nineteenth century, Richard Wagner transformed the realm of musical drama. Years before his towering successes of the Ring Cycle, Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, he wrote the now lesser-performed The Flying Dutchman, an opera that marks the beginning of Wagner’s mature works. The opera – premiered in Dresden in 1843 – is based on Heinrich Heine’s telling of the legend in which the captain of a ghostly vessel, The Flying Dutchman, is doomed to roam the seas for all eternity until he wins the love of a woman. The fate of the Dutchman is said to have struck Wagner as a mirror image of his own disastrous fate in Paris; having expected the city to hail him as a genius, he was left bitterly disappointed. From the outset, the overture depicts the vast expanse of the rolling sea and hints at the despair that is to come, while weaving together other leitmotifs that will reoccur later in the work. Other highlights include Senta’s heartfelt ballad from Act II, the Dutchman’s soliloquy ‘Die Frist ist um’ and the raucous shanty that is the Sailors’ Chorus.

CD x 2

Muzyka klasyczna

Brilliant Classics

13-11-2019

5028421946641