The Flying Dutchman
Captain Cove was cursed to sail the world's oceans forever, allowing only one landing every seven years. Can he find a loyal woman to break the curse?
In 1838, Wilhelm Richard Wagner read the legend of The Flying Dutchman through Heinrich Heine's Memoirs of Schnabeupsky. After a stormy journey from Riga to London — Wagner was once again hiding from his creditors — he chose the material for his next opera and began to compose, his face still imbued with the unpredictable power of the sea.
Against this wild backdrop, Wagner reveals his utopian love in The Flying Dutchman that transcends the zeitgeist of industrialization and economic growth in the 19th century. This work is one of the most enduring examples of the theatrical stage, and every latest stage creation will not disappoint.
Roger Vontobel, director from the National Theatre in Mannheim, Germany, recently broadcast live on the night of its premiere, and audiences around the world once again witnessed the new charm of this great work.
The most difficult problem to escape from the rearrangement of classics is: how to interpret this opera with a history of nearly 180 years and countless interpretations as modern?
Director Roger Vontobel's approach to these age-old stories has always had to do with a special and thoughtful narrative — he sees it as a way to interpret opera.
From a very early age, Wagner lived in a very important environment of capitalist development. In the view of director Roger Vontobel, such a historical environment is no different from what we think of climate change and viral catastrophes today: we also want to get rid of an oppressive environment that makes us sick and powerless, and it is under such oppression that we tend to escape to an alternative or illusory world to distract ourselves.
The story of Centa in the play is an escape from the patriarchal and capitalist world, in which there is no value other than material. She longed for a bigger goal, for another kind of happiness. She lost herself in this longing, paralyzing herself with daydreams that pointed to a schizophrenic, and ultimately fatal state of mind, from which there seemed to be no escape.
The same question is given to the stage designer, how to interpret a changing, accurate, and modern aesthetic stage space on the stage?
The stage designer of the play is the German designer Fabian Wendling, who has found the basis of his inspiration and starting point for the design of this stage from the ancient tradition of the text itself, and the spinning mill depicted in the second act of the text is the starting point of this stage interpretation. The spinning mill is naturally related to spinning and spinning, but Fabian Wendling retained the idea of spinning thread, but chose a rougher rope, which also symbolizes the rough work world of men at sea and the rough factory world of women in textile factories.
So, we see a linear stage full of modern aesthetics, which is not only modern, but also full of magical changes: Senta's daily life takes place in this mill, and she wants to escape there with the Dutch, so it makes sense to portray her dreams and desires as the background of this twisted thread; in the end, the rope becomes a rope for women to tie corsets, and Senta eventually commits suicide with a rope. At the beginning of the play, 53 nooses form a prison-like place, a raised platform serves as a guard post; the rope also supports the ghost ship that cannot return.
Because Senta's ballads are the starting point for Wagner's creation, the entire play interprets the opera from Senta's point of view: we find ourselves in a world where dreams and reality intertwine. The only contrast between the whole play and the dim environment is a new sense of freedom brought about by the costumes in the play.
For costume designer Ellen Hoffmann, "The Flying Dutchman" is a horror story that can take place either in an '80s dystopian novel or in Quentin Tarantino's modern Hollywood films.
For Ellen Hoffmann, Senta is like Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale and its spin-off series. They were basically forced to work as coolies in The Dalander's house, making their own tights and clothes to please the sailors who came. They are "groomed" to fit into the marriage market in order to be "presented to men" in the best possible way.
In costume making, these were 50s style costumes, when women wore them very feminine. Senta's governess Mary is based on Aunt Lydia in Atwood's novel: on the one hand, she enjoys the trust of her daughters, and on the other hand punishes and tortures their guardians, so that no one dares to escape from the system. Daland's costume was inspired by Calvin Candy, played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Django the Liberated.
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About the salamander
Beijing Salamander Culture Development Co., Ltd. is a cultural and creative company that "takes creativity and quality as the core, provides a variety of creative solutions and landing solutions, and realizes the overall landing of performing arts projects". Founded in 2012, the company has been deeply engaged in visual creativity and diversified artistic presentation for more than ten years, and has been involved in large-scale live performances, stage plays, film and television, video variety shows and other entertainment fields. Participated in the design and production of large-scale literary and artistic performance projects such as "Opening and Closing Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games" and "National Day Gala for the 55th Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China"; leading and participating in the creation of works including large-scale live performances "12.12 Xi'an Incident", "Luzhen Social Drama", "Gui Xiu", drama "Four Worlds Together", "Green Snake", musical "Song of Movies", "Gone with the Wind", opera "Ring of the Nibelungen", reality show "Knowledge is Power", "Inheritance of China", etc., bringing nearly a thousand forms of diversity to the audience. An infectious work of art. In 2020, Salamander and the China Musical Theatre Association cooperated to establish the Cultural Tourism Performing Arts Creation R&D Center of the China Musical Theatre Association, hoping to make due contributions to the performing arts industry and the performance consumer market while continuously pursuing and creating highly artistic and ornamental performing arts projects, and discussing the breakthrough of the drama consumption and performance mode in China's performance industry. As the company's official new media platform, "Salamander Vision" aims to create a professional, forward-looking and creative interactive platform to disseminate the company's works, share industry dynamics, and introduce outstanding artists and stage cases at home and abroad. Under the love and publicity of fans, it has now become a social media account with great influence and attention in the domestic stage art industry.
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