The "Flying Dutchman" is different from the men who populate Senta's provincial world. An outsider like them, he is also shrouded in a dark doom. The Dutchman once cursed God; as punishment, he must sail the oceans in his ghost ship until a loving woman redeems him from his curse. Senta is destined to turn the legendary sailor's fate around... Director Vasily Barkhatov tells the story of Senta's quest for romantic self-assertion with cinematic intensity.

Der flie­gen­de Hol­län­der

German Oper am Rhein

The Dutchman is a cursed man, an outsider, a driven individual. Richard Wagner came upon the character of the famous drifter via Heinrich Heine, who lent the Romantic material his typically ironic touch. Wagner’s interest was tweaked not by Heine’s packaging of the story, which relegated the Dutchman-based action to the margins, but by the tale of the enigmatic mariner, which led to him writing his first opera about the man’s quest for a woman who could offer him redemption. The Dutchman, restlessly plying the borderlands between life and death, encounters Senta, who appears equally ill-at-ease and rootless and yearns for a masculine character, the Dutchman, a figment of her imagination.

Gabriela Scherer

Events

Upcoming events

Jan 23 - Apr 5, 2025

Der fliegende Holländer · Deutsche Oper am Rhein

Feb 16 - Apr 26, 2025

The Flying Dutchman · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Future and recently performed repertoire

Sit down in The Flying Dutchman by Wagner

Deutsche Oper Berlin

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