Dietsch & Wagner at Opéra Royal in Versailles

Over het evenement

Marc Minkowski juxtaposes 'Le Vaisseau Fantôme' by Pierre‐Louis Dietsch and 'Der Fliegende Holländer' by Richard Wagner: The works will be performed on the same evening by an outstanding cast for a Wagner bicentenary that also pays homage to his influence in France.

In his repeated efforts to get his work performed on the stage of the Paris Opera and out of financial necessity, Richard Wagner sold the subject of a new work to the new management of the Opera (Léon Pillet) for 500 francs in July, 1841. It was an adaptation of the tale of the Flying Dutchman for which he conceived the idea during the tumultuous flight from his debtors that took him to France. Entrusted in 1841 to Paul Foucher and Henri Revoil, the French libretto was enriched with new influences – especially The Phantom Ship by Frederick Marryat – and then assigned to the composer Pierre‐Louis Dietsch. This unsuccessful encounter between Wagner with the Parisian opera scene led to the composition of two distinct works: Le Vaisseau fantôme ou Le Maudit des mers (The Phantom Ship or The Accursed of the Seas), a fantastic opera by Dietsch, first performed in the Opéra de Paris on 9 November 1842, and Der Fliegende Holländer by Wagner, first performed in Dresden on 2 January 1843 (and not until 1897 in Paris).

If Dietsch was preferred to Wagner for writing the French libretto, it was first of all because of his closeness to Léon Pillet, who had just appointed him director of the choirs of the Opera. A celebrated composer of religious music, he had been Choirmaster of the chapel of Saint‐Eustache church since the 1830's. The Parisian musical press paid homage to his know‐how, and his opera was performed eleven times (but the staging visibly lacked the 'fantastic' aspects that the libretto required).

PROGRAM
6:30pm — Le Vaisseau Fantôme
Sonya Yoncheva — Bernard Richter — Eric Cutler — Mika Kares

8:30pm‐ Der Fliegende Holländer
Evgeny Nikitin  — Ingela Brimberg — Mika Kares — Eric Cutler — Helene Schneidermann  — Bernard Richter

* Category Prestige: the best seats, a glass of champagne, and a program.