The Flying Dutchman

Cursed to sail for eternity with his ghostly crew and only able to step on land once every seven years, the Dutchman can only be saved by the love of a faithful woman.

Experience Wagner’s revolutionary opera of damnation and redemption. Wagner’s first great opera, and his most concise, looks back to the Gothic mysteries of his youth and forward to the penetrating psychological dramas he would later craft.

Love, greed, hubris and obsession drive a narrative shaped by the sea and those whose lives depend on it, opening with a violent storm in which echoes of Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Weber can be heard, and punctuated by folk-like ballads for the sailors and the women who wait for their return.

Daland’s daughter Senta, betrothed to Erik, is shocked to recognise the Dutchman from an ancient painting acquired by her grandmother. Their love is instant, but will it be strong enough to lift the Dutchman’s curse? 

Opera Holland Park’s first production of a Wagner opera is led by the creative team behind the hugely successful Hackney Ring Cycle: Julia Burbach, director of Eugene Onegin (2023) and L’amico Fritz (2022), and conductor Peter Selwyn (La rondine, 2011, and Hänsel und Gretel, 2009), with scenic designs by Naomi Dawson and lighting by Robert Price.

Making his highly anticipated role debut, acclaimed Wagnerian Paul Carey Jones takes the lead. Widely praised for her debut as Woglinde in English National Opera’s production of The Rhinegold, Eleanor Dennis makes her role debut as Senta, the woman who longs to redeem the Dutchman.