Notes from the Stage: Der fliegende Hollander

From the Executive Editor:

As its name suggests, this section will be devoted to documenting notable productions, including (as in the following pages) directors' notes and production photographs, but also (in future issues) designers' notes, dramaturgical notes, reviews, and other materials.

In this issue, we present materials from two particularly significant and controversial productions of Der fliegende Holländer: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's production at the San Francisco Opera in 1979 (remounted in the same year at the Metropolitan Opera) and Herbert Wernicke's 1981 production at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. Our thanks to Claire Myers and Micah Standley at the San Francisco Opera Archives, to Dr. Ulrike Hessler, Michaela Nothelfer, Michael Brommer, and Ingrid Zellner at the Bayerische Staatsoper Pressebüro, and to John Pennino and Robert Tuggle at the Metropolitan Opera Archives. Thanks also to Wolfgang Willaschek for his assistance, to Mareike Uhlig for graciously permitting the reproduction of Wernicke's directoral notes, and to Anne Kirchbach for allowing us to publish her photographs from the Wernicke production.