The Dutchman has been cursed and is doomed to roam the sea for eternity. He’s cast upon the shore every seven years, and if he can win the love of a woman who will be faithful unto death, he’ll escape his curse. But his hope is fading, and he wishes for his own death. That’s when he encounters Daland and his crew, and after Daland sees the Dutchman’s treasures, he offers him his daughter Senta to be his wife.

Herbert Fritsch’s second production at the Komische Oper Berlin after Mozart’s Don Giovanni brings Wagner’s monumental and mysterious Flying Dutchman back to childhood reverie, ‘and superbly demonstrates that in spite of having amused yourself so splendidly – or precisely because of it – you can still take the opera seriously’ [SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG].

Foto: © Monika Rittershaus