The eerie world of Romanticism with its revenants and ghost ships inspired Wagner to write his first mature work. Christian Spuck tells the story of the "Cursed of the Seas" and the lonely captain's daughter as a dark fairy tale from the memory of Senta's spurned admirer, the hunter Erik.
Image gallery
Ingela Brimberg als Senta, Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Der fliegende Holländer
Der fliegende Holländer
Der fliegende Holländer
Samuel Youn als Holländer
Matthew Newlin als Steuermann
Matthew Newlin als Steuermann, Tobias Kehrer als Daland
Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Samuel Youn als Holländer
Ingela Brimberg als Senta, Thomas Blondelle als Erik
Matthew Newlin als Steuermann, Tobias Kehrer als Daland
Tobias Kehrer als Daland, Ingela Brimberg als Senta
Ingela Brimberg als Senta, Thomas Blondelle als Erik
Samuel Youn als Holländer, Ingela Brimberg als Senta
Thomas Blondelle als Erik
Ingela Brimberg als Senta, Thomas Blondelle als Erik
Thomas Blondelle als Erik
Tobias Kehrer als Daland, Gideon Poppe als Steuermann
Ingela Brimberg als Senta; Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Ingela Brimberg als Senta
Ingela Brimberg als Senta
Ingela Brimberg als Senta
Ingela Brimberg als Senta, Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Conductor: Ivan Repusic / Dominic Limburg [12 Nov]
Production: Christian Spuck
With Tobias Kehrer, Elisabeth Teige / Vida Mikneviciute [12, 24 Nov], Robert Watson, Michael Volle / Noel Bouley [24 Nov] a. o.
Der fliegende Holländer
The Dutchman is a cursed man, a driven man, an outsider. Richard Wagner encountered this stateless figure in the pages of Heinrich Heine, who suffused the romantic material with his characteristic irony. Wagner was uninterested in Heine’s broader storyline, which downplayed the Dutchman material. Wagner immersed himself in the story of the mysterious mariner, drawing for his first opera on this tale of a man searching for a woman who can offer him redemption.
Roving restlessly in the borderlands of Life and Death, the Dutchman meets Senta, a woman who, in her own way, appears alien and without a place to call home and is yearning for a male character, a figment of her own fantasy – the Dutchman. The world is one of dream images, obsessions, projections and the fantastic, a world that has long since lost touch with reality. The character most affected by all this is the huntsman, Erik, arguably the only person in the story who is genuinely in love, but he is unable to reach the other characters, which are lost in their dreams.
Written in 1841 and first performed in Dresden in 1843, Wagner’s opera builds on the tradition of German romantic operas as espoused by Weber and Marschner and is a departure from the grand opera style of his previous opera, RIENZI. Yet despite his mainstream approach, the work is an indication of Wagner’s development as a musical dramatist – and the first to place Wagner’s prime preoccupation, redemption through love in death, at the center of proceedings.
Additional information
Romantic opera in three acts Music and text by Richard Wagner World premiere: 2nd January 1843 in Dresden Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin: 7th May 2017
recommended from 13 years
Pre-performance lecture (in German): 45 minutes prior to each performance
