My Night at the Vienna Opera House

As I mentioned earlier, I got a chance to see a Wagner opera at the Vienna Opera House. I'm sure some of your minds went in a certain direction, but in fact the show I saw was The Flying Dutchman. (There wasn't even a valkyrie in sight.)

The outside of the Opera House looks very nice, but the inside looks spectacular. I didn't have my camera with me that night because I wasn't sure if I'd need to leave it somewhere to enter the seating area, though in retrospect given just how many people were taking pictures in various spots before the shoe, I really ought to have known. Luckily I went to the opera with someone else (Dmitry Pelinovsky, a collaborator of mine), so once it's sent to me, I'll be able to post a picture of me inside the Opera House.

We had what are sometimes known as "Bob Uecker" seats, but thankfully that only affects the visuals. The music was good (I was basically in this for the whole experience of going to the Vienna Opera House, which is very much worth doing), although I liked Carmen much better. The show the night before was Romeo and Juliet, which I didn't want to attend because I never really liked that story. It's got way too much pathos, though The Flying Dutchman certainly had it's share of that. We saw a version without any intermission, which apparently is the traditional way of seeing it. (It's sometimes performed in three acts, however.) The lyrics or story weren't particular impressive, but the former at least often tend to be afterthoughts anyway for operas (as far as I can tell).


SPOILER ALERT: As a service to you, gentle readers, let me give you a brief synopsis of the opera:

There's a captain who is trying to sail his ship home but can't quite make it because of a sudden major storm, so he lands on some shore nearby (an uncharted desert isle?), having sustained some damage to his ship, and awaits for the winds and seas to calm before heading home so that he can see his doting daughter and his crewmen can get some action. (Here we are also introduced to his helmsman, who as far as I can tell is only in the opera for later comic effect---though admittedly I'm not quite sure if the particular incident was part of the original performance.) During this and some other scenes, I was waiting to see if I would hear some of the songs I've heard during storms in, say, Bugs Bunny cartoons, as I'm almost positive that several of those come from operas. Unfortunately, I didn't recognize this one from those days of yore. (I also naturally thought of the Song of Storms, but that probably would have hurt the mood.)

Meanwhile, back in his evil lair (errr... ship), the Flying Dutchman (the person) is busy lamenting his fate. He is quite pale and he as well as his entire crew look a bit like zombies. They are definitely undead, though the Flying Dutchman seems to be far more interested in love than braaaaains. His ship is doomed to sail the seas for all eternity unless he can find someone who will love him faithfully until her death, and coincidently, this is the one brief time that occurs every 7 years in which he can actually go on land (or something like that). [I think it was 10 years in the Pirates of the Carribean movies.]

Anyway, the Flying Dutchman (the ship) sails off and ends up at the same place where our captain (remember him?) was. They talk a bit and despite the Dutchman's pallid complexion (and the fact that his ship sustained no damage... nothing suspicious here...), he decides to trade his daughter's hand in marriage for the centuries of wealth the Dutchman has accumulated during his voyage. (The captain does indicate that his daughter's approval is required, but she dotes on him, so he has no doubts that she'll agree.)

Back on land, all the women are busy knitting because only by doing a good job with that will they impress their men when they return from sea. (Coincidentally, all of their significant others are sailers on the same ship. Amazing!) This, by the way, was my favorite song from the opera. It sounded vaguely familiar, actually had some meta in the lyrics, and in general was quite pleasing to the ear. Unfortunately, the captain's daughter Senta is so sad because of the very pale, sad-looking portrait of the Flying Dutchman that she has obsessed over for apparently many years. She feels quite a bit of pity for him, actually. (So, can you figure out the rest of the story yet?) She sings about his pathetic plight, and so none of the women can get any work done. Then her boyfriend (who is a hunter, which is apparently considerably less prestigious than being a sailor) catches her obsessing over that picture of the Dutchman again and tells her about his dream in which pretty much reveals the entire remainder of the story so that we now can predict not only the big picture but also most of the important smaller details (but I digress).

The captain and the Flying Dutchman land and Senta meets them at the docks. Unfortunately for the Dutchman, Senta is slightly plump and has sagging breasts. Nevertheless, he falls madly in love with her at first sight anyway, and feels in his heart that she will be the one to end his curse. (Aside: Why do all these artists confuse love with lust? It's annoying. The Dutchman knows nothing about her personality. She could be psychotic. After all, she's obsessing over his picture instead of happily weaving like the rest of the girls. But I digress.) Despite her promise to the hunter to not fall in love with him, she does so anyway, just as he predicted she would from his dream (though to me it actually looks like pity rather than love). Also, without any hesitation and despite her promise of fidelity, Senta decided to go with the ugly undead guy instead of the young hunter with whom she was already at least somewhat intimate. How fickle. The captain, having left Senta and the Dutchman to be alone for a few minutes, returns and tells the Dutchman that he's had more than enough time to court his daughter. Then Senta's boyfriend goes up to Senta after the others have gone and they exchange some awkward words. The Dutchman walks in on them and laments that she has already betrayed him and now he is doomed forever. (This flagrantly ignores the fact that his poor luck with women from past excursions in the seven-year windows has been discussed explicitly in the opera.) Fortunately, Senta is still faithful to the Dutchman (it hasn't exactly been that long), so in the opera's climactic conclusion, while others are arguing and/or lamenting their fate, she lights a candle and throws it to the ground to create an open flame (this was pretty impressive, actually). She then walks into the open flame and dies a faithful women who loves the Dutchman. Then the opera ends without technically stating if this is sufficient to break the curse---there were earlier implications that Senta would have to actually spend the rest of eternity sailing the seas with the Dutchman.

Anyway, it's best not to sweat the details. The music was good and the Opera House itself was really awesome to see from the inside.