Petra Lang and Vitalij Kowalijow pull out of Wagner opera citing vocal difficulties with demanding roles.

As single tickets go on sale, Wagnerian leading lady Petra Lang and her would be co-star Vitalij Kowalijow have both withdrawn from Victorian Opera’s planned production of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman next year defeated by the “challenges of the vocal range of the demanding parts”. Their roles will be taken instead by rising star American soprano Lori Philips and veteran German baritone Oskar Hillebrandt in the new hi-tech staging which will utilise cutting-edge 3D digital scenery, developed by Deakin Motion.Lab.

Wagner’s opera concerns a wandering Dutchman condemned by Satan to sail the seven seas as a penalty for blasphemy. Now it looks like that curse has come home to visit 46-year-old Ukrainian bass Kowalijow as well as Lang, the woman whose love he might have hoped would redeem him at last. “Both of their agents have said the same thing – the roles are too high for their voices at present,” said a spokesperson for Victorian Opera.

It’s not the first time that Richard Mills, VO’s Artistic Director and conductor of The Flying Dutchman has fallen victim to one of Wagner’s numerous curses. Last year the curse of the Nibelungs fell on his head when he withdrew from Opera Australia’s Melbourne Ring. Mills might take some comfort however from the Opera Australia experience. The company struggled to hold onto its first cast singers in leading roles right up until the end, losing their Siegfried, Wotan and Alberich. In many cases, however, the replacements proved more promising than the originals. So what of Victorian Opera’s substitutes?

Those who have followed Petra Lang’s recent recordings may be breathing a sigh of relief. The singer, who has always been a lower-voiced Wagnerian soprano-cum-mezzo has been beset of late with an increasingly intrusive vibrato and the lyrical Senta was always an unlikely role debut for a singer coming towards the end of a distinguished career. Her replacement Lori Phillips is a name on the up at the moment. A well-thought of Wagnerian soprano, she has sung Senta at the Metropolitan Opera – a role she stepped into at short notice back in 2010 to replace an ailing Deborah Voigt. With Turandot her signature role and successes as Brünnhilde in the Seattle Ring and on record as Dukas’ demanding lead in Arianne et Barbe-Bleu she looks and sounds like more than just a safe pair of hands.

Kowalijow, a noted Boris, King Philip and Gremin had been firmly labelled as a bass until recent forays into bass-baritone territory as Wotan. The Dutchman may simply be a vocal fence too high. Oskar Hillebrandt on the other hand is a seasoned Dutchman, having performed the part for many years as well as roles requiring even more stamina such as Hans Sachs and Wotan. “Oskar is a wonderful Dutchman, a German baritone who has sung the role numerous times, including with the Vienna, Hamburg and Berlin state operas,” says Richard Mills. Born in 1943, he will however be in his early seventies when he sings the role in Melbourne and his most recent performances in parts like Alberich suggest a voice more characterful than lyrical. Still, few were disappointed in the vocal performance of Terje Stensvold as Wotan in the Melbourne Ring, and the Norwegian bass-baritone was of a similar age to Hillebrandt by the time he came to Australia.

The Victorian Opera incident just goes to highlight one of the difficulties faced by many Wagnerian singers on the circuit. In recent conversations, both Jonas Kaufmann and Stuart Skelton have flagged up the problem with knowing where a developing voice will be in three to five years time – the typical lead-time required when opera companies are sounding you out. If the voice just isn’t where you thought it would be as the role debut looms, what do you do?

At the end of the day, with two interesting singers out but two more in the offing it may then be a case of swings and roundabouts for Victorian Opera. Ticket holders would be advised not to jump ship just yet.

Victorian Opera’s The Flying Dutchman opens on February 14 2015 and plays three performances.