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  • (c) Frederique Toupet / OdP
    © Frederique Toupet / OdP
  • (c) Frederique Toupet / OdP
    © Frederique Toupet / OdP

The Flying Dutchman: Opera National de Paris

About the Event

Ricarda Merbeth as Senta teams up with two other great singers, Günther Groissböck and Michael Weinius, in Richard Wagner's 'The Flying Dutchman' at the Bastille Opera House in Paris.

The Paris Opera will resound to the music of a young Wagner still wrapped in the mists of German Romanticism, between Schubert and Weber. Crossing the North Sea from Riga to London on board the Thetis in 1839, amid the howling wind and the crashing waves, Wagner heard the sailors tell the legend of the cursed sea‐captain. The story, also told by Heinrich Heine, is recounted by Senta on her first appearance: rounding a dangerous cape during a storm and refusing to give up, the Dutchman defies Satan and is condemned to roam the seas for evermore unless a woman is willing to give up her life for him. In a troubling confusion of legend and real life, the Dutchman suddenly stands before Senta and stretches out his hand to her… The storm raging outside is perhaps less powerful than the one that shakes the heart.

Recounting the impossibility of living and of redemption, 'Der fliegende Holländer' is above all, and before 'Götterdämmerung', an opera about wished‐for apocalypse.

Cast / Production

Hannu Lintu, Conductor
Willy Decker, Stage Director
Wolfgang Gussmann, Sets and costumes
Hans Toelstede, Lighting
Ching‐Lien Wu, Chorus master

Ricarda Merbeth, Senta

Günther Groissböck, Daland
Michael Weinius, Erik

Agnes Zwierko, Mary

Thomas Atkins, Der Steuermann

Tomasz Konieczny, Der Höllander

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