Fresh from the United States, WA Symphony Orchestra principal conductor Asher Fisch has immersed himself in rehearsals for Wagner's opera The Flying Dutchman, scheduled for Winthrop Hall this weekend.
Ironically, his first commitment after landing was a matinee performance of Dvorak's evergreen Symphony No. 9, 'From the New World,' at the Heath Ledger Theatre.
'We played it for our general audience in October, but we owed it to our lunchtime audience,' Fisch explained.
Typically, the globetrotting maestro of the COVID-19 era took a long route home via Sydney due to Gulf War flight disruptions. However, it is all worthwhile for 'The Dutchman.'
'It is maybe the Wagner opera I have conducted most in performances, and I learned to love it especially in Munich where the Peter Konwitschny production is such a gorgeous production, it is an absolute masterpiece,' he said, referring to the highly admired German director.
'If you are dealing with a smart director, they can make any modern effects look like fantastic theatre.'
WASO will present the opera in concert performance without theatrical flourishes, but the music itself is self-sufficient.
'It is the connection between the previous musical world of Marschner, Weber, and Mendelssohn, everything that was going on at the beginning of Wagner's life, and I am always astounded at what he could learn and how he could change his style from opera to opera,' Fisch said.
'It is amazing considering that what he wrote before that was really not good.'
That is a surprising admission from an avowed Wagner fan, who confessed he tried to avoid a 2013 bicentenary performance of the German composer's C-major symphony.
'This is the only time in my life where I conducted something for about 40 minutes and hated every bar in it because it is so bad,' Fisch said.
'Basic things like harmony, the transitions are really, really weak music. And then, a couple of years after that he writes Dutchman. So we never know what kind of godly inspiration fell on him but he figured it out, the harmonies and the transitions, and the sound and the joy. It is highly dramatic.'
'But he wrote less and less for chorus. The Dutchman has the most for chorus; Tannhauser and Lohengrin, still chorus, and then The Ring Cycle, less. Only in Meistersinger we have major choral writing. So this is also one big joy.'
That is good news for the massed ranks of WASO Chorus and WA Opera Chorus, who, along with the orchestra and soloists, will make up over 120 artists on stage at Winthrop Hall.
It is also rare to hear a whole Wagner opera in Perth — the last from WASO was Tristan and Isolde in 2018 — and Fisch is keen to sell the concept, especially to first-time listeners.
'I have come to Wagner's music very late in my life because I grew up in Israel where there was no Wagner,' he said.
'In 1992 I came to Berlin to work with Daniel Barenboim, and he said, 'Your first task, I am not around, you have to prepare Parsifal,' and I got the score and I could not believe it was this size because how can you fit four hours of music in this book?'
'It was an eye-opener for me, I got the bug, and from that day on, any Wagner opera at any time is a huge source of joy and responsibility for me.'
As if to prove the point, Fisch will conduct Dutchman again this northern summer in Austria with the same British baritone, Christopher Maltman, in the title role as a ship's captain condemned to rove the seas for seven years at a stretch. Only the true love of a woman can save him.
Melbourne-born soprano Anna-Louise Cole plays the love interest, Senta, complemented by Sydney bass-baritone Daniel Sumegi as her father, Daland, and WA's own lyric tenor Paul O'Neill as her lovelorn suitor, Erik.
'Of course, I know Paul as an 'Italian' tenor, but I tried with him in Die Walkurie and he did Siegmund here, and I thought, 'This is a German voice',' Fisch said.
'He is so right, the colour and the way he sings is so right for this kind of music. Erik is very difficult because you need a big voice, but you need a very good top, and that is what Paul has. A lot of the Wagnerian singers are not used to singing so high; Erik is one role that they are not happy doing. So it is a very good cast.'
Working with WASO for the first time in 2026, Fisch said it took just one morning to connect, as they have over the past dozen years of his tenure.
'In the afternoon it all came back, like we never stopped working,' he said.
'The joy that they give me in that I come back and in a very short period of time we are back to our standards and I do not have to waste time to try to impress them. We do the work and they are happy to do it and I am so looking forward to rehearsals of Dutchman; something that gives them a lot to do but they have never played.'
Fisch will only visit Perth three times this year due to the tight availability of Winthrop Hall, so the orchestra is looking forward to reclaiming its home at Perth Concert Hall, now in a second year of renovations.
'From what I am told, so far they are on schedule, which is very good,' Fisch said.
And the renowned acoustics of the hall?
'They are not going to touch it, they do not touch the hall,' he quipped. 'They have clear instructions. They will go to jail if they touch the hall.'
The Flying Dutchman is at Winthrop Hall on May 8 and 9.
