Richard Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman"

"The Flying Dutchman," also known as "Der Fliegende Holländer," is a romantic opera in three acts composed by German opera composer Richard Wagner. First performed in Dresden, Germany, on Jan. 2, 1843, Wagner conceived the idea of writing "The Flying Dutchman" during a storm that overtook him on a voyage from Riga to Paris.

Original Cast and Characters: "The Flying Dutchman"

On opening night in Dresden, Germany, the cast and characters of "The Flying Dutchman" were as follows:
  • The Dutchman: Johann Michael Wächter
  • Senta, Daland's daughter: Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient
  • Daland, a Norwegian sailor: Friedrich Traugott Reinhold
  • Erik, a huntsman: Carl Risse
  • Mary, Senta's nurse: Thérèse Wächter
  • Daland's Steersman: Wenzel Bielezizky
  • Norwegian sailors, the Dutchman's crew, young women.

Plot Synopsis: "The Flying Dutchman"

The plot of "The Flying Dutchman" is very simple. Here's a brief summary:
 
A Norwegian vessel, commanded by Daland, compelled by stress of weather, enters a port not far from her destination. At the same time, a mysterious vessel, with red sails and a black hull, commanded by the wandering Flying Dutchman, who is destined to sail the seas without rest until he finds a maiden who will be faithful until death, pulls into the same port.

The two captains meet, and Daland invites the stranger to his home. The two at last progress so rapidly in mutual favor that a marriage is agreed upon between the stranger and Senta, Daland's daughter.

Senta is a dreamy, imaginative girl, who, though she has an accepted lover, Eric, is so fascinated with the legend of The Flying Dutchman that she becomes convinced she is destined to save him from perdition. When he arrives with her father, she recognizes him at once and vows eternal constancy to him.

In the last act, however, Eric appears and reproaches Senta with her faithlessness. The stranger overhears them and concludes that as she has been untrue to her former lover, so too she will be untrue to him. He decides to leave her, for if he should remain, her penalty would be eternal death.

As The Flying Dutchman's mysterious vessel sails away, Senta rushes to a cliff. Crying out that her life will be the price of his release, Senta hurls herself into the sea, vowing to be constant to him even in death. The phantom vessel sinks, the sea grows calm and in the distance the two figures are seen rising in the sunlight never to be parted.

The overture characterizes the persons and situations of the drama, and introduces the motives which Wagner ever after used so freely, among them the curse resting upon the Dutchman, the restless motion of the sea, the message of the Angel of Mercy personified in Senta, the personification of the Dutchman and the song of Daland's crew.

Resources

Upton, George (1897). The Standard Operas: Their Plots, Their Music, and Their Composersa Handbook. Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Company.