The Flyin' Dutchman

Dancing for joy.  Sort of.

Wow. The only traffic news we ever get is the bad kind.  But the Alaska Way Viaduct actually reopened this morning, five days ahead of schedule.  I guess Bertha finally got her lazy you-know-what in high gear.  Anyway, drilling under the old structure went more quickly than expected, and the engineers say it's as safe to drive on now as it was before she started.  (Which isn't saying much, but we're used to that.)

We took surface streets through downtown all the way to the Seattle Center yesterday, and it felt like a video thrill game, the streets were so congested with people popping up doing stupid and unpredictable things.  But we made it, actually with an hour to spare to drink coffee and chat with Candi.

Even for hardened opera goers, this one was a bit of a slog, well over two hours running without an intermission. It's too bad, because we really like Wagner's music.  At least I do, I shouldn't speak for John, although he sat through the entire Ring Cycle twice, which is saying something.

The period setting of The Flying Dutchman for this production was changed to 1930's Germany. The sets and costumes were dark and gloomy, except for flashing lights and weird bits of neon colors.  There were chairs stuck on the wall and the stage was tilted. You could ignore it to a certain extent, but eventually it distracted from the excellent singing and symphonic music.

We have a relatively new general director of Seattle Opera, so he's making his own creative mark and trying to generate interest in the opera.  I understand his dilemma. Those of us who have been going to the opera for 40+ years are, well, dying off. Who will replace this old audience?  And does the younger generation even have the attention span for this art form?

Changing settings to make opera more "relevant" is done all the time in the theater. But twice this season, the final ending from an original libretto was altered.  Both times with gun violence, I suppose for just the shock value.

In The Flying Dutchman original story, the heroine Senta chooses to throw herself in the sea as the cursed Dutchman leaves her behind. Wagner's swelling music makes it pretty clear they are united in Everlasting Bliss. He was big on that stuff.  In this production, Senta gets shot by her jealous boyfriend, who happens to be a hunter and is always waving his rifle around.  So instead of Wagner's beautiful, reflective music, the final impression was an ugly bang. 

It makes a person nervous about these new surprise endings!  What's next? Is Rodolfo going to put Mimi out of her misery?  Is Butterfly going to pull out a pistol instead of a samurai sword?