The Dutchman returns to Covent Garden

“How satisfying it is to attend an opera and find a ‘discovery’ in the cast. Here, it was the Steersman (Steuermann) of American-Finnish tenor Miles Mykkanen (who has this season debuted at San Francisco as the Groom in the North American premiere of Saariaho’s Innocence). Here is a singer of vast power and lyricism, who convinced us that the Steersman is really a vital cog in the machine, whose dramatic abilities match his fine vocal apparatus. Mykkanen’s activity seems almost exclusively States-side (with the odd foray to Aix, Vilnius and Hamburg); interestingly, he has sung Albert Herring (Albert Herring, Britten) at Chicago’s Opera Theater, a mouth-watering prospect and a role one hopes he will reprise.

The finest compliment for the cast and chorus is that this was not the Bryn Terfel Show, despite his magnetically gripping assumption of the titular role. Of the established names, Elisabet Strid shone like a morning star; Both Ksenia Nikolaieva and Miles Mykkanen perhaps established themselves beyond doubt as future forces to be reckoned with (and of the two, I would more likely travel to hear Mykkanen).”

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