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  • Remarks on the Munich Production
  • Herbert Wernicke (bio)
Remarks on the Munich ProductionHerbert WernickeDer fliegende HolländerBayerische Staatsoper, 1981

The space of the entire plot: some archetypical living-space, initially irritating, undefined, then in part recognized by the intruding Dutchman as an ideal space for his desires, finally shown to be Daland's concrete world. A theatrical plot breaks into this space, escalating until it reaches its ultimate conclusion: Senta's death.


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Figure 1.

Franz Ferdinand Nentwig as the Dutchman in the Act I monologue from Herbert Wernicke's 1981 Der fliegende Holländer, Bavarian State Opera Archives (photo: Anne Kirchbach; reprinted with permission from the Bayerische Staatsoper).

The Dutchman and his crew are real figures who, at a certain point, driven by anger and desperation, cut themselves off from society, fleeing into a kind of piracy. Their leader, their captain, the Dutchman, is driven by the sole desire to return to the very society he abandoned.

Daland and his sailors, representing the world of men, are fully integrated into this social structure, as are Daland's daughter Senta, Mary, and the women.

Senta perceives the powerful pressures to which the women in Daland's house submit. She wants to escape these bourgeois constraints; she yearns for a person who won't regiment her (Mary), deride her out of jealousy and stupidity (the girls), or bind her through egotistical love (Erik). Her dream of freedom is to sacrifice herself for a man whom she intends to love even unto death. [End Page 518]


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Figure 2.

Franz Ferdinand Nentwig as the Dutchman in the Act I monologue from Herbert Wernicke's 1981 Der fliegende Holländer, Bavarian State Opera Archives (photo: Anne Kirchbach; reprinted with permission from the Bayerische Staatsoper).

The figure of Senta is a typical example of a woman bearing the burgeoning ideals of a process of emancipation that emerged just prior to the middle of the 19th century. And yet this emancipation could not come about since its standards [End Page 519]


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Figure 3.

Catarina Ligendza as Senta in the Act II Spinners' Chorus from Herbert Wernicke's 1999 Der fliegende Holländer, Bavarian State Opera, 1981 (photo: Anne Kirchbach; reprinted with permission from the Bayerische Staatsoper).


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Figure 4.

Franz Ferdinand Lentwig and Catarina Ligendza as the Dutchman and Senta in the end of Act II duet from Herbert Wernicke's 1981 Der fliegende Holländer, Bavarian State Opera Archives (photo: Anne Kirchbach; reprinted with permission from the Bayerische Staatsoper).

[End Page 520]

were principles derived in turn from the world of men.

Senta's catastrophe is sparked by a misunderstanding on the level of expectations between her and the Dutchman. Each of them sees in their partnership the fulfillment of their individual ideals. However, these ideals are in no way shared, they do not overlap. Daland approaches the Dutchman with his corrupting norms; the Dutchman is destined to become just as much of a Biedermeier figure, just as much of a 19th century middle-class bloke as the others.

Senta ends up the victim of her ideals, the victim of her determination not to become a member of this community. She becomes a victim of the very people and ways of life against which she sought to defend herself with all the means at her disposal.

Herbert Wernicke

Herbert Wernicke was a highly visible and controversial avant-garde opera director until his premature death in 2002. Born in 1946 in Auggen, a small town in the Black Forest, he took up musical studies at the Braunschweig Conservatory (where he studied flute, conducting, and piano), switching subsequently to studies in set and costume design in Munich. After initial engagements in set and costume design and as a theater director, he prepared a scenic production of Händel’s 1744 oratorio Belshazzar for Darmstadt in 1978. From that point onward, Wernicke devoted himself almost exclusively to music-theater, preparing productions in Mannheim, Kassel, Hannover, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris, and Basel. In 1991, he first...

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