Dietsch: le Vaisseau fantôme

Day 217

Dietsch: le Vaisseau fantôme

Soloists

Les Musicians du Louvre

Mark Minkowski

This is the first in what will be an occasional series of operas by the 'wrong' composer - i.e.  familiar titles but not the composer you expect.  I will fit them in on days when I have enough time to hear the entire opera.

Dietsch was associated with the Opèra in Paris for many years, ultimately becoming its musical director. In that capacity he was the conductor of the disastrous first performance in Paris of Tannhäuser, which led to a riot secondly only to that which took place at the first performance of Le Sacre du Printemps. 

Some years earlier Dietsch had composed a version of the Flying Dutchman. There is some dispute about exactly what happened but it seemed that Wagner had sold the scenario to the Paris Opèra in a desperate attempt to raise some money and I think that he had hoped that he would be commissioned to composer the opera. But the commission was given to Dietsch. The opera was given a handful of performances and then was completely forgotten until it was revived for this recording.

History was not wrong in associating the opera with Wagner. Dietsch's effort is pale in comparison. Much of it can generously be described as hack work by somebody who was clearly familiar with the French operatic repertoire but who had little real imagination of his own. Perhaps that it is a little unfair. There were a few moments when the opera did leap off the page - particularly in the long second act duet between the Senta and Daland characters (they have different names in this version). But elsewhere the inspiration is seriously thin.

So no more than a curiosity - I wonder how many times I will say that in this series?

Tomorrow I start a new theme - works for solo violin. I know the Bach sonatas and partitas but other than that repertoire is a complete blank so it will be fun to see what I can discover.