Der fliegende Holländer

As storms lash the coast of Norway, the sea captain Daland steers his ship to safety. But what is the strange vessel that anchors beside him, with its silent crew and melancholy captain? The old mariners’ legend of the Flying Dutchman tells of a ghost ship with an undead crew, cursed to sail the oceans until doomsday. But in Wagner’s 1843 opera Der fliegende Holländer, there’s a twist—every seven years the captain can set foot on dry land where, if he can find faithful love, the curse will be lifted. And Daland’s young daughter Senta has been dreaming of a pale and haunted seafarer… Widely regarded as Wagner’s first really personal masterpiece, Der fliegende Holländer does what Wagner would do in many of his later operas: takes an old legend and transforms it into a passionate human drama of love, suffering and redemption. Wagner is said to have been inspired by his own sea journey from Riga to London, and the tempestuous Overture is one of the great Romantic orchestral seascapes. Yet Der fliegende Holländer is also filled with all the colour and melody of early 19th-century opera at its freshest, ranging from the (infectiously hummable) “Spinning Chorus” to the transcendent final scenes: one reason why this wave-torn tragedy is often suggested as the most accessible port of entry into Wagner’s intoxicating imaginative universe.