Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo, Bogotá, 21 February 2026
Richard Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer
Although Richard Wagner had already completed three operas —Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot and Rienzi— Der fliegende Holländer is widely regarded as his first truly Wagnerian opera. Wagner thought so too, and his wife Cosima later reinforced the point by never adding the earlier works to the “Bayreuth canon”. The score feels startlingly modern for its time: it is hard to believe it is contemporary with works such as Donizetti’s Don Pasquale or La fille du régiment. Here Wagner makes his first successful, sustained use of leitmotifs, a technique that would become a cornerstone of his later music dramas. Just as importantly, he begins to loosen the old recitative–aria–recitative mould, shaping the piece into something closer to a continuous musical argument. It was conceived as a single act, even if practicalities later forced a division into three. This single act version, as it was originally conceived by the composer, was the version staged at the Teatro Mayor. For clarity, though, I will refer to the opera by its traditional three-act division when pointing to specific moments in the score.
Colombia is a country that has historically avoided staging Wagner. The difficulty of casting the right singers for his works and the demands his music places on orchestras have undoubtedly played a role, but a broader lack of ambition to expand the repertoire has been a factor too. Luckily, after a bombastic Tannhäuser in 2013 —with Gustavo Dudamel on board— which marked the first complete Wagner opera performed in the country, followed by a Tristan und Isolde conducted by Kent Nagano in 2016, it seems Colombia has started to right its wrongs and now follows through with this Holländer.
The staging, by Argentine director Marcelo Lombardero, updated the action to a somewhat contemporary setting. The modern attire and technology worked well with the story overall, and the projections on the large screen at the back of the stage proved a genuinely effective device, drawing the audience deeper into the drama. In Act I, for instance, as the Holländer’s ship docks, the projected image makes it look massive next to Daland’s, giving the title character and his crew a sense of scale that many productions never quite achieve. The sea remained a constant visual presence throughout: Act II seemed to unfold in a sewing factory with a view of the water, while Act III moved to a dock where Daland’s men, at one point, appeared to be watching football on an old antenna TV, yet always with the moving sea looming behind the action.
I do have some qualms, though, especially with how Daland was handled. During the overture, the production inserts an acted sequence in which a young Senta is read the story of the Holländer, and a young Daland enters with gestures suggesting domestic violence toward Senta and her mother. The implication is that this leaves Senta with lasting trauma and a fear of men that colours the entire opera. As a rule, I’m not particularly fond of acted add-ons in opera overtures, and here it arguably goes too far. Daland is certainly greedy and self-interested, but turning him into a domestic abuser feels like an unnecessary escalation.
That aside, I found the production remarkably successful, especially for an opera that is not easy to stage convincingly.
The Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá has long been a phenomenal opera orchestra, even more so in recent years, and this time it was led brilliantly by the American conductor Stefan Lano, a former understudy to Lorin Maazel. He shaped Wagner’s score with dramatic intensity, at times almost grippingly so, keeping the tension high and more than a few of us on the edge of our seats. Yet, like the sea itself, his reading also knew when to pull back: moments of calm allowed the music to breathe, gave the singers space to rest and offered the audience a chance to settle before the next surge.
The Coro Nacional de Colombia was one of the major highlights of the evening, as has become something of a tradition, already evident in last year’s Nabucco. The women were both effective and charming in Act II’s ‘spinning chorus’, while the men convincingly embodied a crew in full camaraderie and confrontation. They sounded excellent, and their rapport with the soloists and the conductor was clear from the outset.
The role of the Holländer has always been a big hurdle for bass-baritones, as it contains one of the most demanding arie di sortita in the whole repertoire in ‘Die Frist ist um’, but Argentine bass-baritone Hernán Iturralde rose up to the challenge convincingly. His voice had the correct weight and enough volume to carry over the orchestra, while his spectral and distant demeanor was enough to embody the character.
The vocal highlight of the night, though, was Betty Garcés’ Senta. Her beaming voice overshadowed everything whenever she sang, and from ‘Senta’s ballad’ onwards —magnificently delivered, by the way— every moment was charged with gripping tension and emotion. Her acting, full of frustration and a yearning for the Holländer, made the portrayal even more intense, culminating in a convincing leap towards the projected water on the screen, followed by projections on the curtain showing her drowning, but finally at peace.
Valeriano Lanchas, debuting as Daland in this run, embodied the character fantastically. His Act I duet with the Holländer was convincingly sung, and his Act II aria ‘Mögst du, mein Kind’ was delivered with real mastery. A superb singing actor, he portrayed Daland brilliantly, always credible and persuasive onstage. His signature warm bass-baritone remained consistently strong throughout the evening and served as a constant reminder of why he ranks among Colombia’s most important operatic singers of the past thirty years.
As Erik, Argentine tenor Gustavo López Manzitti was perhaps a little cold and underpowered on entry, an impression likely heightened by Garcés’ torrential voice, but he improved as the evening went on, correctly shaping his cavatina towards the end of the opera. His rapport with Senta was good, but in my opinion more could have been done to make him appear younger, to better match Senta’s age. Ana Mora and Hans Ever Mogollón did very well as Mary and the Steuerman, rounding off an all Latin American cast that, all in all, delivered a great performance.
Overall, Colombia’s third attempt at staging a Wagner opera can be considered a success. It is evident that orchestras and choruses in the country are more than capable of performing these works and that strong Wagner singers can be found without even having to look to Europe or the United States. If there’s anything I take from this performance, it’s that we are one step closer, even if only a tiny one, to staging a full Ring cycle in Colombia, which has been one of my dreams ever since I was a kid.
