The Flying Dutchman

The Flying Dutchman is a brilliant story.  It is just so spooky, and what with ships, a chorus of ghostly sailors, storms at sea, and a tortured, driven soul just dying to die, it is surely well suited to operatic treatment!  I was lucky enough to see Bryn Terfel in the title role a couple of years ago (in Tim Albery's production for the Royal Opera House), and I will never forget the chill in my spine when he made his first appearance.  Saturday night at English National Opera, Jonathan Kent's production couldn't live up to that seminal experience; perhaps the huge set was just too big and static to evoke the movement that is so evident in the music.  In fact, just listening to it, you sort of start to sway.  The lighting, though, and the projection, was brilliant.  But I'm still holding on to that night I heard Bryn.