All you need to know about Wagner’s first great opera…

What is the story?

The Flying Dutchman‘s plot is based on the centuries-old Dutch legend of a ghost ship.

The title character, the Dutchman himself, has been cursed to wander the seas forever, and is allowed to make landfall only once every seven years to try and find a woman who will be faithful – only she can save his soul. So, when the Dutchman meets a powerful man with influence, Daland, and hears he has a daughter, he offers him money to marry her.

But the daughter, Senta, already knows all about the legend of the Dutchman and is full of empathy for his suffering to the dismay of Erik, who is in love with her. When she and Dutchman finally meet, the mysterious bond between them grows dangerously strong …

Read full synopsis 

Layla Claire as Senta and Edgaras Montvidas as Erik/ Steersman © James Glossop

Who are the key characters?

The Dutchman — seeking refuge (baritone)
Daland — Home Secretary (bass)
Senta — his daughter
Erik / Steersman* — Daland’s right-hand man who is in love with Senta (tenor)

The Chorus of Opera North play a big part, both as Daland’s men (those who work in the Home Office) and the Dutchman’s crew, the undead, those looking for shelter from the storm.

* These two roles are conflated in our production

Edgaras Montvidas as Erik/ Steersman, Layla Claire as Senta and Robert Hayward as The Dutchman © James Glossop

What is the music like?

Wagner’s music for The Flying Dutchman is stormy and dramatic — you can hear the roar of the wind and waves in the orchestra, especially the lower strings and timpani, right from curtain up. The overture also introduces all the different leitmotifs — musical themes associated with each character or idea (including the Dutchman and Senta). This is a device which Wagner developed throughout his career, and it grew to characterise his ‘music dramas’, like the Ring cycle.

A real musical highlight is ‘Senta’s Ballad’ (‘Johohoe!’) in which she narrates the legend of the Dutchman and her feelings towards him — again, listen to the wind and waves in the orchestra…

The Flying Dutchman was Wagner’s first real success and it marked a new start. Some of the intense, introspective music he wrote, like the Dutchman’s opening aria ‘Die Frist ist um’ (‘The time has come’), was groundbreaking.

What is this production like?

Director Annabel Arden and designer Joanna Parker (the team behind our acclaimed stagings of Andrea Chénier, Turandot and Aida) have re-imagined The Flying Dutchman to take place on our ‘ship of state’: the Home Office. This ministerial department becomes the lens through which the traditional story is viewed.

There are nods to ships within the office setting: the desk becomes the prow of a ship ahead of the Dutchman’s arrival, and a bar for the ‘office party’ in Act III is shaped like a sail. Metal chains framing the stage will form the canvas onto which video is projected — from vivid imagery of the sea to reams of data…

As Opera North holds Theatre of Sanctuary status, the show’s creative team have been able to connect with those who have lived experience of seeking refuge, and you will hear recordings of their voices at the opera’s opening — the voices of the voiceless.

Chorus of Opera North © James Glossop

Who was the composer?

The Flying Dutchman was written by German composer and giant of the opera world Richard Wagner (1813-1883). He revolutionised opera, viewing it as ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, the synthesis of all art forms, an idea realised most fully in his epic Ring cycle.

However, at the time Wagner wrote The Flying Dutchman (1840-2), he had known what it was like to be literally anchorless. In 1839, young and in debt, he ran from creditors in Riga, and (illegally, as his passport had been seized by authorities) boarded a ship bound for London. Due to bad weather, the voyage took three times longer than expected! So when it came to exploring the idea, Wagner wrote “the legend took on a distinctive, strange colouring that only my sea adventures could have given it.”

But the Dutchman held a greater significance for Wagner — throughout his career, the character represented “a longing after rest from amid the storms of life” (A Communication to my Friends, 1851).

Richard Wagner

What is the legend?

The myth of this phantom ship probably originated from the age of the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century. In ocean folklore, a sighting is a terrible omen…

The first print reference to The Flying Dutchman appears in Travels in various part of Europe, Asia and Africa during a series of thirty years and upward (1790) by John MacDonald, and mentions come up in literature over the next half century, including in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and in the writing of Sir Walter Scott, who was the first to describe the vessel as a pirate ship. Wagner took as his basis the satirical novel The Memoirs of Mister von Schnabelewopski, which introduces the idea of setting foot on land only once every seven years.

More recently, The Flying Dutchman has cropped up in the Pirates of the Caribbean films (where it is captained by the tentacled Davy Jones, played by Bill Nighy), and even in SpongeBob SquarePants, where the Flying Dutchman appears as a ghostly pirate…

The Flying Dutchman by Albert Pinkham Ryder c. 1887

Did you know?

  • The German title of the opera is Der Fliegende Hollände, which makes it clearer that the ‘flying’ in the English translation is more clearly understood in our language today as ‘fleeing’ — nobody is actually flying!
  • Wagner originally hoped that the Paris Opera would produce The Flying Dutchman. He was able to sell the synopsis to the management (which they then gave to their house composer) but was unable to convince them that the music was worth anything! Awkward. So the opera premiered in Dresden, 1843.
  • Wagner originally intended the opera to be performed through with no intervals — a completely seamless musical experience. But don’t worry, we’ll be staging the three-act version, and letting audiences get up for a leg stretch or a drink between Acts II and III!

Autograph score: Overture to The Flying Dutchman

The Flying Dutchman is sung in German with English titles and lasts approximately 2 hours 30 minutes, including one interval.

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