Die Feen – review

The later Wagner dismissed his first opera, Die Feen (The Fairies), as unworthy of him, and it was not performed in his lifetime. But the rest of us have no cause to obey that proscription, and this rare concert performance by the Chelsea Opera Group showed why. True, Die Feen will never be a repertoire piece, but it is a unified work with some powerful and accomplished music by a hugely assured composer who, even at 20, wrote his own libretto and had his own sound.

The influence of Weber and the German Romantic obsession with the supernatural infuse the work. But there are also signs of things to come. Die Feen may be, literally, just a fairy story, but Wagner's fairies are a subversive force and the piece already has quintessential Wagnerian elements; a magic sword, a question that must never be asked, the lure of something beyond the everyday world and, above all, as the hero liberates the heroine from death with his song in the final act, the transforming power of art. There are wisps of melody that look forward to the Flying Dutchman and Lohengrin in particular, and even to Die Walküre.

Even in early Wagner, the conductor is crucial, and Dominic Wheeler drove the whole thing along with panache. Orchestral and choral standards were occasionally uncertain – Wheeler even did an instant retake of a botched passage in act one – but it did nothing to halt the admirable momentum of a performance that contained some cuts. All the principals did well. David Danholt was a tirelessly eloquent Arindal, Kirstin Sharpin a rewardingly focused Ada – particularly fine in her big act-two scene – and Elisabeth Meister a striking Lora. The dramatic mezzo of Emma Carrington, as Farzana, also caught the ear. A thoroughly rewarding curiosity.