For his production of “The Flying Dutchman”, premiered in 1978, Harry Kupfer chose the original Dresden version of 1843, which has a rougher, more muscular texture than the subsequent editions. When “The Flying Dutchman” was performed in Zurich and Munich, Wagner himself revised the work, softening the instrumentation and appending the “redemption” conclusions to the overture and the third act. What was the reason for the heated disputes which took place between the conservative Bayreuth Wagnerians and the more progressive lovers of the composer’s music? Harry Kupfer’s production presents the entire story of the Flying Dutchman as a hallucination, a figment of Senta’s disturbed imagination. She is seen by the director as a highly neurotic, even schizophrenic young girl, whose yearning for the eternally wandering Dutchman puts her into a trance-like state, in which her own internal drama is acted out in the form of a vision. By having the character leap through the window to her death at the end of the opera, Harry Kupfer has placed a highly personal interpretation on Wagner’s notion of “redemption”.
Lohengrin
“Lohengrin” was premiered in Weimar in 1850 under the direction of Franz Liszt. The performance was a triumph for the composer, who, however, was unable to attend: he had been exiled for taking part in the 1848 uprisings in Dresden. Director Götz Friedrich took this historical background into account by having the radiant knight appear at the end dressed in black – a symbol for the dashed hopes of the German revolutionaries. The political message, however, generally pales before the aesthetic power of the images which depict the Middle Ages in a totally abstract manner. As Lohengrin, Peter Hofmann gives a performance that is dazzling in every gesture and every tone. Karan Armstrong replies with a very lyrical timbre and applies expressionistic means to convey sorrow, wonder and the bitterness of leave- taking. This production by Götz Friedrich was recorded at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in 1982.