Shades of Grey: Michael Fuller has reservations about a reinterpretation of the ‘Holländer’ as Erik’s dream

Review of Der fliegende Holländer, directed Spuck, conducted Runnicles, Deutsche Oper Berlin, 2017.

November 2017, Volume 11, Number 3, 66–7.

From a visual point of view, there is much about Christian Spuck’s new production of Der fliegende Holländer that seems strangely familiar. The set consists of a slate-grey box set, with two large doors in the rear offering means for characters to enter and exit. The costumes – workers’ jackets and trousers or overalls for the men, plain dresses for the women, greatcoats for Daland and the Dutchman – are for the most part similarly a dull grey, the only splashes of colour being the green jacket worn by the huntsman Erik, and some ribbons worn by the women in the final act. Mist billows regularly across the stage (and is used to create some striking lighting effects). In points of detail there are a number of resonances with Tim Albery’s 2009 production at Covent Garden: an area of the stage is covered in shallow water, and a model of a fully-rigged sailing ship stands in for the Dutchman’s vessel.