Here we have Wagner’s original plan for his first masterpiece conceived for a premiere in Paris that never happened. It is set in Scotland rather than Norway. Daland is Donald, Erik is named Georg. The scoring is slightly lighter, and Bruno Weil’s use of period instruments serves to emphasise that, in this form, the score harks back to Marschner rather than being prophetic of so much that was to come in Wagner’s own work. The end, in this edition, is far too conventional: one can hear why the composer wished to change it.

All this is an interesting experiment, but in the event it only goes to show – once more – that a composer knows best what he eventually wanted: this Holländer seldom matches the elemental force of the best accounts of what we are accustomed to hear. Until the final scene, where some dramatic force does enter the performance, it is an etiolated, rum-ti-tum affair, not helped by Weil’s undramatic conducting and a rather ordinary chorus and orchestra. Listen to any of the Bayreuth sets, or the Klemperer and Pinchas Steinberg versions listed above, and you can judge what is missing here – theatrical tension or a feeling for the work’s extreme originality.

The singers vary in vocal command and ability to act with the voice. While one is thankful for Terje Stensvold’s firm, attractive singing of the title-role, he seldom if ever projects the man’s inner torment or his longing for release from his sufferings. As his willing redeemer, Astrid Weber certainly suggests the girl’s single-minded obsession with her hero’s picture, then with the real thing in a way the young Silja achieved at Bayreuth on the Sawallisch version, but the more forceful passages of the love duet and the final trio tax her resources beyond her limits and she tends to screech – there’s no kinder word for it.

Franz-Josef Selig, the best-known singer in the cast, is a sturdy Donald and I have a lot of time for the young tenor Jürg Dürmüller’s lyrical Georg, but neither of these parts can really make or mar a performance of this work. The chorus sing securely and with fine tone, but there’s little suggestion that they are part of a gripping drama, and the incursion of the Dutchman’s crew in Act 3 is unacceptably feeble. The orchestra produce the kind of mid-19th-century sound Weil obviously wants. They – indeed the whole performance – suffers from a recording that is far too recessed for its own good. Those wanting to hear what Wagner first intended may want to hear this set, but anyone looking for a real Holländer need to look elsewhere. Steinberg, at super-bargain price, remains a good buy.